Walking with no cane
and sloth’s no crime,
you can have a jones for sax
and stay with clarinet,
but baby, it’s love I need,
all the love you can give.
I draw you to my magic slate,
raise the page and there you are,
love only sane men can handle,
catch fire when you rub your thighs:
I burst into flame in between,
I’m the stick spinning the sun.
Her legs are longer than her neck,
still she loves Modigliani,
and she sketches him, he sketches her,
both naked before and after love.
It’s always when there’s time to spare,
they draw their bodies, taking pains.
When they make love he loses track
of where he is. She pulls him down,
down here where you belong, she says
and smiles longer than his long kiss
lets her stay awake, the way he wants her
sleeping on her side, where he can draw her.
feel her going too, then lie back with her
listening to her whispering into his ear
How was that? or Would you like a nightcap?
and when he said yes she might change her mind
and do what he told her once he liked more,
what he had learned from the girl he paid for
in Hotel Ibero and the woman
in Hotel Londres just across the street,
one showing him how and the other one
saying and meaning there’s no love to spare
when you go around the world to get to
where you arrived in Mexico City.
Paula did not ask Bobby to teach her,
she knew exactly what to do and did
better than either the girl in the Ibero
or the woman above the Londres mezzanine.
Paula tasted like what he was writing
in his head about oranges, peaches,
apples, pears, mangos, making a baby
under the acacia tree, where he draws
from memory to paper, waking without her.
(11 May, 12, 17 June, 5 July 2012)
copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander
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