Painting Your Body

I am no painter
but if I were to choose for your cheeks a hue
it would be something in a Picasso blue

For your forehead a rosy flush
brushed by the breeze up a windy ridge
delicately done by the wind and sun

Your eyes are sad so I'll leave them black
with a wash of gray where the tears have run
darkened by the place where the soul comes from

One breast is Ochre the other Alizarin
done with a knife so the colors weigh
softly mounded like pinkish clay

Your belly's ivory and mounded too
a glowing mix of white and curly lambent black
that lumens blue tracery where skin glints through

The thigh that's raised is an ocean sunset gold
the one that's straight is iris midnight blue
the cleft between a tumescent rosy hue

The feet are green for they love the ground
where your toes and soles caress the grass
and shake the bells in your belly like tinkling brass

For the very last I have saved your hair
for I held it yesterday in the afternoon's glow
and I'll tell none what I saw and experienced there

For none but I have the need to know
what I learned while dressing your hair—
why passionate men hold it as their secret share