After the murder of her children,

there was a devastation in her eyes

that brought to mind The Garden of Delights.

The way she looked over her shoulder

across a pre-Raphaelite form,

wading from deep water to the beach

as if she understood the war being waged against her

by the world

urging it on like a wounded animal

throwing a smell across the centuries to now

through hamlets, hammocks, palaces and streets,

the one cruel smell

of forests burning in the memory

of her loins,

her one cruel copper smell

of woman.

And I detect

from the adoring way Delacroix painted her

amidst riotous nudes saddled

on zebra, leopards and boar

reasons why I once had found her flawless,

and something of the reason

why I left.