The Sévres Road

By Susan Donnelly
Camille Corot's painting, stolen from the Louvre, May 1998
It might have always been meant
that they walked completely away,
this man on horse, woman with basket.
With their backs to us and the painter,
they are so private. But like those stories
where children step right into a picture
and, looking over their shoulders,
see the consoling frame,
these two would know the way home
like the palms of their hands, the routine
so ordinary it most encloses,
no need for thought, only motion
and the full sensation of sun
on your flesh, along the usual road.

Source: Poetry (June 1999)