Still Life with Portrait.(Poem)

 
STILL LIFE WITH PORTRAIT 
 
   I make a still life, set out on a shelf: 
   glass vase shaped like a trumpet, 
   white wind-flowers on green stems. 
   In the glow of the lamp 
   these flowers lift your eyes 
   to creams and greens in the portrait above, 
   a portrait of my sister in Seville. 
   The dark hair has been brushed 
   from her forehead and tied at the nape, 
   she could be Spanish, or Frida Kahlo. 
   Her burnt-almond stare is defiant, 
   she loves the student who paints her 
   in the high-backed, green chair, 
   a pale scarf foaming at her throat. 
   Neither my sister nor the artist 
   who soon left her 
 ...