The room above the landlady's has a window 
opening like a laughing mouth 
into the valley of flowers stretching south. 

Battered dolls, turned upward in sightless grins at 
litter scattered in stilted afterthoughts, 
plates rusting away in quiet indigence,
two introverted cupboards with nails like claws,
waiting for an occupant 
like the broken chair near the fireplace: 
unlikely teammates on a sparkling floor. 

Monet overlooks the bed as a picture of a valley 
spreading to the south, dotted with flowers 
wrought in his blue-grey eyes. 
light impressed upon the edges of an earlier heaven, 
best tasted with slices of Chopin's fortissimos. 

The curtains can be drawn to let in
choruses of petals assault the eyes, 
dull the late evening rays. 
There's no light to throw upon this valley where serenity 
reclines amidst the signposts of lighter dreams 
in a world without frames. 

The landlady does not need her Monet
of colours fenced in sepulchral teak.
She only has to draw the curtains . . .