Degas in Winter

Perhaps if I go see Degas,
dawn will enfold me.
Take away my winter gloom.
Let purple rooftops
open like lilacs, leave
the breath of orange
petals on the windows outside.
Degas showing himself
in the pictures
that came in their boxes
for a few days to our city.
See the world he cast
on his walls,
the voices inside his heart,
the romance of his gaze.
This poor, eccentric, bad mannered man
who peeks at us
from his pictures,
with incomparable innocence and
ingenuous joy.