Madame Recamier
René Magritte was fourteen when his mother drowned herself
in the Sambre River hooded in crepe
smelling of old clothes and mal intent.He searched her face for a glimpse of eyeholes
for a way in, a warning as to what
his fate might be without her.Upon a backless daybed
her sarcophagus is set in place
bronzed fruit of buried mourning absent of air.Her drab casket sits up like a child.
It is not a pipe or a fish or a sculpture
but an ill-shaped coffin conceived in grief and grizzly jest.It is his mother immortalized
in a funerary box with wreathed handles,
madder-brown, darkened with age.A chime sounds on the other side of the wall
a mirror padded with memory.
A boy becomes an artist.
Madame Recamier by Bill Ratner
Bill Ratner is a voice actor and author of poetry collections Lamenting While Doing Laps in the Lake (Slow Lightning Lit 2024,) Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press 2021,) To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press 2021.) He is a 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM, 2-time winner of Best of The Hollywood Fringe Extension Award for Solo Performance, and a Best of the Net Poetry Nominee 2023 (Lascaux Review.) He teaches Voiceovers for SAG-AFTRA Foundation. • billratner.com • @billratner
