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 ..