Edmund Hodgson Smart, British
Cora Could Understand Her Guests Wanting To Arrive Fashionably Late For Her Thanksgiving Dinner, But It Was Now December 3rd. Perhaps She Should Turn Down the Heat on the Turkey, 1907
Oil on canvas
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Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found in his Wikipedia page.
/// All night long, with the damask drapes drawn,
tense Iola sat, stifling a yawn.
She remained fully dressed
in her haute couture best.
He’s not here yet, and now it is Dawn.
/// To the East through the window she’ll stare,
hoping vainly she’ll soon see him there.
Playing cards had been dropped
to the rug when she stopped
after hours of distraught solitaire.
/// She keeps moving the drapes just to check.
Hours of worry have made her a wreck.
Solitaire hasn’t been
soothing— she cannot win;
she is not playing with a full deck.
/// It was at eight PM yesterday
when the guests arrived for the soirée.
Each one secretly knows
Tom had planned to propose
to Iola, his soon fiancée.
/// Many hours passed with no sign of Tom.
The guests left with advice to stay calm.
Perhaps he’d missed a train.
He, no doubt, would explain.
Until then, she should wait with aplomb.
/// Though she’s frantic with panic and fear,
she’d prefer now he NOT show up here.
She has pictured with dread
her Tom injured or dead;
she may kill him if he should appear.
/// When his Lordship gets home after dawn,
he’s too drunk to note what she has on.
It’s her sexiest gown.
While he’s “out on the town”
his wife’s lover has twice come and gone.
/// She encourages these drunken sprees
so they both can do just as they please.
She’ll gain much, as his wife,
if he loses his life
from a liver (or lover’s) disease.