A Reflected Woman
I don’t have a blueprint,
just this smudged version
of what she would look like,
an impression in a shop windowpane,
just as the light catches her in mid-thought.
To recreate, I must fillet an idea until
it is just a pulse, a blood surge,
a milky image of smoke;
I must work on her from the inside,
teasing out strands of mutual desire
from slim neck bones
and a tidal whelm.
My hands are palms outward and kneading;
a kind of questioning masturbation -
that is the gentlest way
to daub such imaginings into prayer.
Maybe I could chafe that conceit, like fresh
Virginia leaf between my fingers,
dunk her in a glass of Folonari Valpolicella
then place the wad between my gums,
chawing on it until she takes shape in my mouth.
No need to ever take her out,
she will disappear soon enough
into a space reserved only
for dwindling morning stars.
Perhaps she will suicide
on high-tension wires. An electricity
flaring her into a wind-blown gawkish appearance.
The sculptor in me leaves a fatal wink in this ideal,
one that will metamorphose into something
too fair for my skin-leaching hands,
too transient for still-life.
Then, when all is said and done,
she will simply remain this poem,
an on-going motif,
one that will surprise me again and again,
as I glimpse her once more
through a forever blurred shop window.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2019
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