Nude Model
Sun in the studio—
my charcoals
finger his flesh,
ladder of his body,
while his eyes,
stenciled on,
try to erase me.
So strenuous this asking
who are you?
Which one of us dares
slam the door
in the other’s face?
I’m ready to break
all the windows
so I can breathe.
The afternoon’s a map
where I can’t find
his hiding place
somewhere beyond
the cross hatch of hairs
down his belly
or the sweet
fragrant idolatry
in its black star.
Mary
Crow teaches at Colorado State University in the Creative Writing program and serves as Poet Laureate of
Colorado. Her poems have recently been accepted or published by Prairie
Schooner, Hotel Amerika, Field, Ecopoetics, Verse, Main Street Rag, and Margie.
She is currently circulating a book of poems titled Isleward.