Love's Skin

"Contact Sheet #4457 of a couple on a couch." In one of a dozen shots, "Diane is lying across the man’s lap in place of the woman" (undated; see Diane Arbus, Revelations, p. 180).

If she wants to know them, she must be one.
Since she’s the woman, she asks to lie
in the man’s arms. She stretches naked
across his knees. Is the woman amused
by Diane Arbus, her attempt to become her?
Why would Dee-ann want to take the place
this woman’s earned? Does the man want her,
or will she be spared having to say no?
The man’s naked lover puts the camera down.
She smokes, then cups one breast as she brushes
its nipple hard, crossing then uncrossing her legs.
She’d like the photographer to get up now
and let her have her man back, now she
knows how to play her, how it feels to touch
what will be seen on film following this
fol-de-rol that goes hand in glove with love.
Who broods the woman’s white, the man black?
In eleven shots they show love’s deeper.

(II: 29 October 2012)

copyright 2012 by Floyce Alexander