For lit class, thought I would share. Inspired by Renoir's Dance at Bougival and W.H. Auden's poems In Praise of Limestone and The Shield of Achilles. The painting is attached.



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She couldn’t remember how they met



Or how they had lived together for so long,



But he had every moment etched into his memory—permanent, like it was chiseled—and



His brain was the only record of their love’s genesis.



The tangible proof shared hair ribbons and a bedroom,



Huddling together beneath holy, well-worn quilts, wondering where their mother had gone.



He told them not to fret, stroked their hair and hummed soothing, nervous little nothings:



“Don’t cry, ma petit, mon cheri, Mama will only be gone for a little while.”



The girls snacked on the sugar-coated lies—he wanted to believe them too—but falsehoods left them hungry;



They needed their mother’s milk and Hail Mary’s and bedtime songs, not the halfhearted reassurances of the rejected husband, a faithful lover scorned.



She was too young and too fair to stay, for he was dark-bearded, solid, and serious,



And even the heady nights of whirling, whooshing, wonderful dances at Bougival were not enough to hold her. 



“Au revoir, Paul,” she called over her shoulder one morning, gay and filled with light,



And suddenly he was a widower,



And the little girls—poor, abandoned darlings—fought for possession of the red bonnet their pretty young mother had left behind.