Akimbo
I wait forsaken and graceless,
faceless behind the masterpieces,
with dulled pencils, damp brushes −
her other straight tools cleaned, prone
and at attention, ready to answer
the call after the moment
she has bent my waist this way or that.
Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec
immortalized on fired mugs − me
contorted, distorted, a mere
mannequin to set up a sketch,
offer proportions, then put aside
as the lustrous portrait parts take on
muscle, become rounded and wrinkled.
Seurat and his Sunday Afternoon
figures, donning hats and pleated skirts,
reveal life within their pointillism − but
I,
with my splintered heart, blend in,
a dusty afterthought, wood-grained and
colorless,
yet, at the ready for her godlike touch
to twist my joints into a new garden her pallet
commands in motion, in bloom beneath the
gloss.
--Sam
Barbee
