"Dora Maar in Green Fingernails," Pablo Picasso
Poem submitted to “Dora Maar in Green Fingernails” poetry contest, Robert James Liguroi, sponsor, April 1, 2026.
I lean toward her~ this woman split into colors a woman rendered in angles, her face divided as if emotion had been dissected and pinned onto the canvas. Her green fingernails startle me, soft as bruised mint, as though she once touched something tender and the tenderness stained her. She sits with that stillness women learn too early~ the stillness of being looked at instead of being seen. Inside those mismatched eyes I sense a private weather, a quiet storm she never named. She was a photographer who could coax truth from shadows, a surrealist who bent the world until it revealed its hidden pulse. Yet, here she is, held in the gravity of Picasso’s gaze, her own brilliance dimmed to the outline of his muse. And still~ there is something in her posture, a hint of sorrow and a small, steady refusal. As if beneath the fractured planes she is gathering herself back, piece by luminous piece, her green nails glowing faintly like the first signs of a woman stepping out of someone else’s shadow and into her own light.
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