There’s been a lot of talk with supportive diagrams about how if Rose had just scooched over, Jack would have fit nicely on that floating door
and he would have lived
and she would have borne him many children;
but there has been no talk about how a rich Swede (an actual survivor of that most titan of shipwrecks) stowed a painting the size of a full sheet of plywood in the ship’s cargo hold,
an actual work of art showing a nude woman with actual supple parts
painted by an actual artist
who won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1803
and was bestowed the rank of Knight by Charles X of France
and who lost a competition for a seat at the Académie des beaux-arts to Ingres, who died of pneumonia in 1867.
Craig M. Foster’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Blue Mesa Review, The Masters Review, Jabberwock Review, J Journal, and The MacGuffin. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and he was the recipient of the Masters Review Reprint Prize and the Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize for Fiction.
