Once,
you painted the bathers
nudging
the landscape
with
their nude bodies
to be
noticed and nuanced by light.
Their
skin glowing on the bone
soft
as fruit pulp
made
the canvass ripe, plucked
by the
hunger in those wanting
women
and apples.
Now
you are the bather
soaking
your old hands
in ice
water. The bowl gleams
catching
movements by your son
or his
girlfriend -- your latest model
sent
by his mother
from
an infinite distance
to please
and pamper the house
with
beauty.
On a
good day
when your
fingers have lingered
long
enough in this cold bath,
you
squeeze paint from their tubes:
titanium
for her shadow,
red ocher
for her hair
and
faint blue for veins
that
define her translucent skin.
How
you envy your oldest child.
He can
touch her flesh, trace
the
first flush of heat. You can merely look
from
an artist's chair
watching
her vulnerability --- wash through
like
the morning sun
through
sheer silk or milk glass. Your dead wife's curtains
and
vase.
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