“Superwoman” is one of the poems in Long Island poet, Lee Marc Stein’s, recently published book, “Whispers In The Galleries.”

Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth


See our existential heroine as she crawls,
polio-atrophied legs peeking out from her
tobacco-road pink dress, torso twisted ever so
strangely, loose wisps of hair floating gently.

Muted colors dupe us into serenity, but
Christina braves the barren Mainescape
to complete her mission or exercise
freedom from her wheelchair

Is she dazzled by flinty white light
or merely dreaming that she has rolled
through the rough onto fairway and green,
making par with no handicap?

No birds sing, no insects sway grass.
the scene is silent as snow failing,
but we can hear the machinations
of Wyeth’s mind, plow clearing road:

Christina’s my aviator of anguishes
of how we feel chained to a cadaver,
of courage to crawl forever
toward ends beyond our means.

We frame the painting as archetype
of American realism until we strip veneer
to learn the artitist’s wife posed fro him
–only arms and hands Christina herself.

On his make believe farm, Wyeth erased
annexed buildings, alter space
between house and barn, gave earth its
Viagra rise. Only Christina’s sprit is true

After Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth