The Call - for Bly
by Tim Blighton
Amid the soft oils that grow fern and leaf in your studio
her constellation of freckles shifts into a smile. Listen, the sink
still drips where you washed your paints. You are placid
water, tadpoles swim near the surface when you see her, but you
stretch to the angle of your canvas. It's simple: collect her
fingers, her bouquet. When you wake fully clothed tomorrow
to a morning rouge on your collar, open the blinds.
She's on the couch. Look closer, maybe her toes will be painted
like shiny ants searching for a picnic, maybe her silk blouse
will web the easel where your detailed flowers
captured the flit in her eye. Maybe her cornea will accept
the smudge of your patient thumb, until one morning
she'll rise from the bed and turn to kiss you. Water is now
filling the basin; leave the brushes. Let the world you detail
flood you. You will ripple in its reflections. You can't see him
yet, but an old man with a cane is hobbling to you, aching
and greedy. His surface no longer reflects you, instead
he eats color. Ignore his insistent tap like a grandfather clock
because she waits in the cicadae-shrill near your pond,
to slough the skin around your ears, to snake into the grass
with you and field your eyes with sunflowers.
her constellation of freckles shifts into a smile. Listen, the sink
still drips where you washed your paints. You are placid
water, tadpoles swim near the surface when you see her, but you
stretch to the angle of your canvas. It's simple: collect her
fingers, her bouquet. When you wake fully clothed tomorrow
to a morning rouge on your collar, open the blinds.
She's on the couch. Look closer, maybe her toes will be painted
like shiny ants searching for a picnic, maybe her silk blouse
will web the easel where your detailed flowers
captured the flit in her eye. Maybe her cornea will accept
the smudge of your patient thumb, until one morning
she'll rise from the bed and turn to kiss you. Water is now
filling the basin; leave the brushes. Let the world you detail
flood you. You will ripple in its reflections. You can't see him
yet, but an old man with a cane is hobbling to you, aching
and greedy. His surface no longer reflects you, instead
he eats color. Ignore his insistent tap like a grandfather clock
because she waits in the cicadae-shrill near your pond,
to slough the skin around your ears, to snake into the grass
with you and field your eyes with sunflowers.