It’s the fallen strap of her blue shift
fallen from her shoulder.
There, just a glimpse of a gold ring on her left hand
as the hand gathers, between forefinger and thumb,
the drop to her waist of lustrous hair, chestnut brown, still.
So with the left arm and shoulder unclothed, the fold
in her forearm hides her breast's slight swell.
She has long eyebrows, a broad forehead.
See, the hint of a hairbrush in her right hand.
The nose is thin and perhaps a little long
for beauty. Lips set, almost pursed,
she is looking into nowhere:
a dream, some enchantment?
No, she sees the harbour this morning
before the sun rose when, sleepless,
she walked out, not far, but barefoot.
Hardly a slip of wind to stir
the hem of her slight dress,
only the sound of sea’s breathing,
Later in her studio
(before Leonard wakes)
Nancy sits in front of her latest canvas.
Having bunched up her dress
well above her sun-stained knees,
she grasps a palette knife:
to scour here, scrape, scrape into paint there.
Pausing, momentarily
she looks into and beyond the image . . .
Today, later, she will stand in that pose
she knows he loves, where she (before bed),
brushing her long lustrous chestnut hair,
lets the blue strap of that calico shift
fall - and rest – held loosely against
golden flesh of her upper arm.
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 4:03 AM UTC
It’s the fallen strap of her blue shift
fallen from her shoulder.
There, just a glimpse of a gold ring on her left hand
as the hand gathers, between forefinger and thumb,
the drop to her waist of lustrous hair, chestnut brown, still.
So with the left arm and shoulder unclothed, the fold
in her forearm hides her breast's slight swell.
She has long eyebrows, a broad forehead.
See, the hint of a hairbrush in her right hand.
The nose is thin and perhaps a little long
for beauty. Lips set, almost pursed,
she is looking into nowhere:
a dream, some enchantment?
No, she sees the harbour this morning
before the sun rose when, sleepless,
she walked out, not far, but barefoot.
Hardly a slip of wind to stir
the hem of her slight dress,
only the sound of sea’s breathing,
Later in her studio
(before Leonard wakes)
Nancy sits in front of her latest canvas.
Having bunched up her dress
well above her sun-stained knees,
she grasps a palette knife:
to scour here, scrape, scrape into paint there.
Pausing, momentarily
she looks into and beyond the image . . .
Today, later, she will stand in that pose
she knows he loves, where she (before bed),
brushing her long lustrous chestnut hair,
lets the blue strap of that calico shift
fall - and rest – held loosely against
golden flesh of her upper arm.
Nancy was the painter Marjorie Mostyn who with her husband Leonard John Fuller founded the St Ives School of Painting in the 1930s. See the painting here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/woman-with-long-hair-15240
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