The Girl With a Rabbit by Joan Currie

When my mother
was a child,
she sat for an artist
with a rabbit on her lap.

The pose was very formal–
the rabbit, Düreresque;
the roses beside her,
worthy of van Aelst.

When she saw the finished portrait,
she begged her parents to buy it.

The Depression allowed
no such extravagance,
nor the Church
such vanity.

The painting was forgotten

until my mother nearing
her ninetieth birthday,
asked me to find it.

It was all she wanted.

Alas, art dealers
and auction catalogues
yielded nothing.

I could not grant
her last wish.

Years after she was gone,

I painted

a girl with a rabbit.

She looks like my mother.

I hope she can see it.