In the little known gallery,
I smiled and surprised him into watching me as
I watched him work,
The exciting little things he did for me,
when he finger-painted my belly like an early
Jackson Pollock.
Showering me with volatile reds, blues
that swirled and wrapped around my naked back
like lava
or glacier rivers when his hands were cold.
The words he said,
when we talked in tongues on an Austrian balcony
and the stars were hiding
from the excitement, the fear, and
the thought of flight back home, that blue period
when night dissipates to light.
He captured
the flame from my bedside candle in his arms
wrapped it ‘round my shoulders and sketched in the details.
Those fine lines of
late nights and stiff drinks
leaving their lasting mark.
Somehow it happened that
we can no longer stand to stand apart
and I must have him so
to see my belly rise and fall,
and he must have me to complete his vision
of what it means to be famous.
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