A girl reclining by an open window
I do not say this was
the only thing one saw that day.
There was a strip of luminous green,
pale and cool suggesting the sea,
or moss on wooden shutters.
But if on a white canvas I mark down
some sensation of blue or green,
each stroke diminishes the one preceding.
So you see there was, first of all, a girl.
I, bored and elegant, outside the scene
at a proper aesthetic distance.
She, Algerian, darker than almonds,
almost part of the terrace shadows.