Once again
I am captured
Struck by the rose,
enraptured by the thorn.
I see your reflection in
ivory paper,
and the crown of your sweet head
like a blanket of fallen snow.
Does it matter, I wonder,
if you were truly alive or truly living?
For in these pages I can see your image
as truly as if it were a branding in my head.
The gentle slope of your shoulders,
the dark and twisted curls-
Now see, you begin to see her too-
the small & delicate hands,
with crooked ring fingers,
the intuitive eyes.
And perhaps if I call Aphrodite,
down from the sea foam
and have her fair lips kiss these words,
I can have you materialize in my breath
and echo into my arms,
a statue no more.
Or perhaps I will lie a fool
my thumbs and forefingers obscured by ink
and your skin that of clay
detached and resolute.
Dec 27, 2020
Dec 27, 2020 at 2:09 PM UTC
Once again
I am captured
Struck by the rose,
enraptured by the thorn.
I see your reflection in
ivory paper,
and the crown of your sweet head
like a blanket of fallen snow.
Does it matter, I wonder,
if you were truly alive or truly living?
For in these pages I can see your image
as truly as if it were a branding in my head.
The gentle slope of your shoulders,
the dark and twisted curls-
Now see, you begin to see her too-
the small & delicate hands,
with crooked ring fingers,
the intuitive eyes.
And perhaps if I call Aphrodite,
down from the sea foam
and have her fair lips kiss these words,
I can have you materialize in my breath
and echo into my arms,
a statue no more.
Or perhaps I will lie a fool
my thumbs and forefingers obscured by ink
and your skin that of clay
detached and resolute.
Inspired by the tale of Galatea and Pygmalion, in which Pygmalion falls in love with the statue he's created; or the artist with his creation. I spun the tale so that it's the writer falling in love with the inevitably written
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