The Picture Of You

In this garden,

on this summer night,

you feel

that your beauty lies

in the silver pump

that dangles from your foot –

I can see how you have tested it

before the shop mirror,

turning now this way, now that,

to view from each angle

the line of metallic cloth

against the intricacy of  your instep.

And now we see it here,

a small part

of the picture of you.

You sense

tonight

your beauty lies

not in your face

but in smoke blown from

your mouth –

you have learned smoke,

have studied the effect:

the slightly laboured inspiration,

the toss of your head

as the fumes reach your lungs,

the instinctive arc of the hand

to free the thread of your hair

caught in your eyelash.

And while you sit,

one leg resting on the opposing knee,

with the dangling pump,

the hand-rolled cigarette poised between two fingers

the young man next to you

drinks in

the picture of you:

he has merely glanced

but

he has become the smoke in his mind

and has chased down into the depths of you.

The finger

of his mind

has traced the edge of the shoe

until it has caressed the tenderest skin of you.

Inside and out.

He sees the frame

you have created

around the picture of you.

He wonders how to be within the frame,

how to move the paint and work the canvas:

with his thick mechanic’s fingers.

He knows that you are jelly-naked beneath your clothes,

movements of fabric

pressing against the most intimate parts of you –

those parts of you

with which you wrestle,

which harbour the darkest, uncontrollable humanness of you:

odour,

texture,

flavour,

vibration,

sensation,

sin.

He longs to tally the reality with the image

but cannot fathom

how

or where

or when

he might

remove these garments –

how might that come to pass?

How can he be those moments?

And you know his mind is in the

soft-lipped,

fleshy pit of you

as you pinch the back of his hand –

but still you are uncertain

of your effect.

You edge around each other –

while his mother

fries you tea –

bacon on the summer air

on your tongue-tip –

sweet salt.

A moment’s silence falls between you –

the invisible sphere

that surrounds your loins,

and that surrounding his,

overlap

in subtle anticipation.

He speaks from his gentle mouth –

his face smiling –

his breath smelling of the turgid earth.

You feel the germs of his words,

deciding how long

this dance

will endure.