Nude Worth Study
 
Meet my new blank book.  
Stunning, isn't she?  Dig the virginal
glow.  Bared skin an ivory
could turn an elephant green.
(I see a pachyderm born to survive.
Age finally fells, fans flock to
wreathe her in a sea of wild
strawberry-dyed cloth
perfumed with jasmine.
Tusks take half a hut
as they wait for the patina
that is said to revive
dead bone.)
 
To cover between sittings, work
in a large peacock. Near holographic.
feathers should have the standard
eyes, dark and hypnotic.  Rest,
shake, then stir.  Here,  blood-rust
plays footsie and handsie with aqua
and an anemone'd blue stands   
in for royal.  Meandering black
fences can  no way contain.  Our  
artist -- Indian, I feel sure -- aced
a dizzy angle, then fanned the pimped
tail to the max.  (Fold back over front
to where a navel would wink, were our
inner creature less fantasy bound.  
Sounds as shy as the first hand-dampening
touch by an ostrich quill or pencil
fell off some truck.)  (Magnet  
in here.  Got to be.) 
 
My daughter,  notorious
for doing magic, presented you.
Just like her.
 
To touch is a sacrilege, far less ravage.   
But Art's middle name is Leap.  Going
to rule my lines!  My loops and curls
will rival  Cirque de Soleil's.  NO striking
out, NO erasing.  I sharpen a  marigold
Eagle fresh from a box and plunge.
 
Blood spills as the muse and I charge,
leaving a trail of writer's scat.  Rushing
dashes us against rocks at a waterfall's
base.  Isn't pretty.
 
Somewhere there's a poet who gets it right
the first time.  (Third?  Tenth?)  Somewhere,  
I surmise, one who's worthy.  Hear me out.
Nowhere  is there a poet you will treasure
you more when too many tides leave you
a  tissue-balled shell, never quite wet, never
quite dry.  So open for me, love.  
Spread your inner flesh wide.  Like this,
want you to tell.
 
 
(c) Phyllis Jean Green,  June, 2008   -- All Rights Reserved