Visiting the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

O Georgia O'Keeffe, with your sky

wider than any sky,

your blue more turquoise than heaven.

Your skin and bone of the world

are enough for me:

your staring skulls, your knotted trees,

blood-orange sands and sun-scorched canvases.

I love the exuberance of your giant forms:

their space, their size, their soul,

their lack of subtlety.

Black flowers, purple leaves,

womb mountains, terracotta flesh,

red vein of rock, wind-sculpted torso.

They make me cry for happiness

and I turn back to the friend who brought me here

wanting to shout -

`See! This is who I am!

This is what my heart looks like!'

He's hunched on a bench

reading the gallery catalogue,

his body small and cramped.

I rush towards him,

wanting to share the joy,

wanting to graft my passion onto him.

But he looks up and sees only a face

become a huge damp wilderness

and he shrinks into himself a little further,