Section III
2022
Daily Walk in the Quarter helena minton
Down the Rue Franklin in her black skirt and white blouse, splattered with ochre, black hair pulled back, deep black eyes. Berthe lugs her satchel laden with pigment tubes, sketchbooks, tools of her work. To a man on the street she looks odd but full of purpose, a stark Parisian sight, striding past other women, weighed down by baskets of legumes, on the way to set up her easel In the Bois du Boulogne, her brushes determined arrows. Where will they take her? As she stabs her palette she mutters, shadow and angle, swan, saw grass, chestnut tree. Cross with unfinished sketches, she might toss them in the lake and watch them float with lilies.
The Lowell Review
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