Neville

Opus

Opus

 

According to some as yet un-writ universal law

She was to be his opus

A final masterpiece, without a single flaw ..

Each subtle stroke

each shutter click, each eye lash and golden

wisp of hair

Was each and every one of them a stroke of

genius to be fair ..

He, though was far more than merely modest

and wasted not

one single drop of ink, nor daub of paint, or word

Since she was meant

to be in his eyes perfect, with no blemish, graze,

stain or bruise ..

And should she ever bleed, it was the gods

themselves decreed

It must surely be, from a single perfect open

wound,

The like of which, all men do dream ..

and then, for four and one half years he laboured

Almost every single day and night, he toiled ..

oft foregoing

nourishment and sleep ..

Until that is, he lost his mind and sight to her

for gazing

far too long and hard and deep upon her

nakedness as was,

Now draped and seemingly resplendent in a

borrowed flaxen shawl ..

and held there pinned against the sudden

backdrop

of an elsewise empty canvass ..

Carelessly gathering dust in a corner of some

long forgotten artist’s studio apartment

Not a million miles away from Plaza Trastevere ..