Nude on a Horsehair Sofa by the Sea
I don’t know what to do with his body.
It looks smooth—& heavy too—
from the way the sofa’s mahogany claws
sink into the sand. Every other wave
is brown, the ones in-between a light liquor
bottle green, & the strip of wet sand
the froth laps, then leaves, is glass-
brown & shouldn’t act like mud
but does. When a seagull struts by
I see the others flick their brushes
in irritation over that spot as if to
drive it away— & me, I’m avoiding
the subject, still fretting over how to paint
the word sometimes because the pebbles
only show when the water’s had a chance
to settle. I can tell he’s secretly moving
his toes along the grain of the sofa
& back, so the hairs lie smooth, then
bristle as one wave crests & another
crashes. The women next to me sighs.
Her clouds look like dark whales floating
in the sky, her brush hovers over
them & then dips down to make
an awkward dab at the spot between
the model’s thighs. It is starting
to drizzle now & each wave has a pocked
& peaked landscape of its own & people
are folding their easels & shielding
their paintings with their bodies as they run
to the striped cabanas. Perhaps he will whisk
out a cloak & wade slowly into the water,
silk billowing about his fine white ankles.
Perhaps he has to help carry the sofa. I turn
and trudge after the others, picking a path
through the driftwood littered like collarbones
on the beach. I want a way to take it all
with me—the sag of the sofa beneath him &
the curve of the ocean which is what I think
the iris must look like from inside the eye.
One Filament Against the Firmament
Most days Group V. practice on seeing through
Prisms because of the way they bend in light
They are considered the first marker of advanced
Sight tests had been conducted on them all as
Children these ones could examine a dewdrop
Perched on a furred leaf and not cry when it fell to
The ground had no more data to give though later
The books would be buried to give us something new
To discover God could not be a matter of spaceships
The way must be found through the mind and the
Eyes are distractible as the Leader discovered one night
In a stairwell when one lightbulb overhead managed
To distract him from the sky outside he decided
That finding beauty pointless might actually be the
Point at something and then see past it became
The first lesson to lessen attachment to things put
Here to distract us of course there were detractors
Who thought the fingers or tongue would work just
Fine lines of personality scar the fingertips though
And tastebuds cannot belie their bias only the mind
And the eyes could absorb indefinitely pupils practiced
Not shrinking at the sun it was an honor to go blind
Trying to ignore the tiny creatures that float across
Our eyes was a task that drove hundreds crazy because
It didn’t make sense that something tiny and see-through
Could lure the gaze away from the Taj Majal or a Monet
Which is what they practiced in front of because of the lovely
Colors and affection for them were eliminated later as were
All forms of luxury like being able to see your family
Across the breakfast table they all disappeared one by
One day everybody woke up alone and couldn’t find
Each other and they would have all died from standing
Still there was one girl who hadn’t been able to stop loving
The word marshmallow and one boy who had a favorite
Color slowly seeped back into the world and a new group
Formed to research why it had but it never became clear
back to pity the bathtub its forced embrace of the human form
