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, as the light catches her in mid-thought. To recreate, I must fillet an idea until it is just a blood surge, and 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 stars. Perhaps she will suicide into her own 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 her still-life. Then, when all is said and done, she will simply remain this poem, an ongoing motif, that will surprise me again and again, as I glimpse her once more through a forever blurred window.