after Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond, 1785

I teach you to look head-on at those looking at you, to not, in returning 

gazes, drop your palette or your work. Surely men will look at you 

with hopes of causing pause, so wear your daring dresses and your hats 

with feathers and look at them right back, with a look that tells everything: 

there is no me without this canvas or those who will learn over my shoulder.

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Megan McDermott is the author of Jesus Merch: A Catalog in Poems and chapbooks Woman as Communion and Prayer Book for Contemporary Dating. Her poetry has appeared in various journals, including Amsterdam Review, the Maine Review, the Christian Century, and more. She is an Episcopal priest in Massachusetts.