reverie

Declan Ashworth

What Wyeth Didn't Caption

They call it longing, the way she's turnedtoward the house like a woman who just needsto want something enough to make the distancecollapse. I call it math. I call it the exactcalculation of how many inches of grassa body can cross before the asking-for-helpcosts more than the crossing does. I've donethat math myself, on a good day, at the mailbox.Nobody paints you reaching for your cane.They paint you reaching for the house instead,the long gold field standing in for allthe unglamorous mechanics of a bodydoing what a body actually does:deciding, again, today, to go the distance,on its own terms, in its own particular time.

About the ekphrasticA poem written in response to another work of art, such as a painting.

An ekphrastic poem looks at a work of art and answers it. That might be a painting, a photograph or a sculpture. It can describe what is there, speak to it, or wander off into what it stirs.

Listen for Whether the poem describes the artwork, speaks to it, or drifts toward something it stirred.

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Declan Ashworth

@declan

Chronically ill, incurably funny about it.

6 poems · 5 readings received · 3 written · 0 followers

Readings (2)

Mara Okonkwo27 October 2026
"I call it math" just absolutely dismantled every sentimental read of that painting in three words, I gasped. But the mailbox line is the one that got me, that's where it stops being About A Famous Painting and just becomes a Tuesday.
Declan Ashworth27 October 2026
You gasped?? Amazing, that's exactly the reaction "I call it math" is supposed to get. The mailbox line almost got cut actually, so genuinely glad it's the one that got you.
Kai Moreno27 October 2026
Okay so I wrote my own after Hopper and thought I'd covered every possible angle on being looked at in a painting. You found one I genuinely never considered, the unglamorous mechanics of it. That line should hang next to the actual painting.
Declan Ashworth27 October 2026
Hadn't even read yours when I wrote this, promise! Good to know we're both just out here doing math homework on other people's paintings apparently.

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