I’ve seen her painting.
Splitting open
the right hand wall.
Really, my first glimpse had been sideways.
Acute and enticing,
whilst arriving
in a friend of a friend’s hall.

Quickly caught napping,
I am dragged towards the black alley porches
to a small frame
of faded blair gardens.
The brief trundle enough
through peripheral vision
to prism her form.

I did not yet dare inquire
of what I saw.
As friends of friends
bend a dangerously thin tight rope.
One where the faux pas of the acrobat
though social,
feels deadly still.

As warm words exchanged mouths,
I conjured her
as frozen sparks of delusion.
I reduced her slowly,
shimmering yet immobile;
a white snow lays a fogged *****
fielding my illusory core.

Yes, I’d seen her painting
with her brush in hand,
while arranging a portrait of her myself.
On the distant porch
she took her chair,
the jut she made,
thawed herself
and perhaps a small part of me as well.