Her lover is an island, far away.
He writes of breasts
tipped with raspberry fruit,
of arms like alabaster,
sends fat parcels
to the poetry press.
To her, he writes that
he’s on the brink of greatness.
He’s certain of it.
He just needs a little more time.
He sends her flowers,
and items of glass
to remind her of the beautiful fragility
(also because they’re cheap).
The bed in the corner,
which you cannot see,
still smells of his papery skin,
his sex. It’s the full guns sex
of the pauper and the abstinent.
The apples are from her mother.
He just needs a little more time.
And so she stares – petulant brat,
or woman with an eye too full to bear? –
at the deep blue vacuum
of the sea, the future.
This is just my narrative;
yours may differ.
For nudes are nothing –
form, structure, vessels for the roving self –
unless they match our stare.
And she – she declines it.
Either that, or she does what she’s told.