After “The Lovers I” by Rene Magritte
She can feel his breath through the fabric
which lies heavy and rough against their skin.
The material is pulled tight at their faces and
collects like rope at their shoulders.
Is this a becoming or an undoing?
It doesn’t much matter.
The sky is overcast, a dull tone
that makes everything seem to blur
together.
How shocking when something as normal as a couple
pressed close is disrupted by something like this.
How traitorous the mind when it reminds of
body bags, a character from a novel, or a mother
as she is pulled, pale as the fabric, from the river.
After Edward Hopper
When I pose you tell me to look away. I shouldn’t be surprised,
but it still catches me off-guard. You’ve decided to keep the lights
off this time, wanting the only thing to touch my bare skin to be
the late morning sun which filters through the window. My mind
is never allowed the peace of going blank beneath the heavy weight
of your gaze which studies my anatomy without the burden of
being stared back at. You memorize the lines of my body longer
than you’ve looked me in the eye.
You tell me you’ve decided to make me the only light thing
in the room, and every time you go to paint my pale skin
you meticulously clean your brush of any dark color with a
medical kind of detachment. You say it’d be a shame to
muddle my pale skin with dreariness. I’ve been painted
by you enough that I know the script of your talking, the
mutterings of a man half-distracted. I know the point of my face
remaining the only unpainted part of me is to deny the viewer
my individuality. I’ve not yet decided if I consider that a blessing.
After a series of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi
1. “Judith Beheading Holofernes”
A pair of soft hands hold him down,
and mine are fisted in his hair
and hold a sword to his throat.
Despite his struggles, we keep
him still with a quiet coordination,
the sleeves of our dresses rolled up
to avoid the blood that is now spilling
from his neck as I press down
on the blade. He bleeds more
the second time.
I do not understand how men like him
kill without flinching. With
every layer of skin my blade
severs my stomach churns.
His movements are made weak
by the alcohol in his veins—
I prayed that God would make me
a good liar and He did—
Our brows are heavy with focus.
Slicing through flesh and meat and bone
is harder than men like him make it seem,
but I manage anyway.
His last breaths smell like liquor.
2. “Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes”
My maid wraps the decapitated head
of a warlord in a cloth like she’s
swaddling an infant. Her movements
are quick and quiet as she works in
the spaces between shadows. I have
carved this opportunity for us with
lies and revealing dresses. What shade
was the dress I wore when I left Bethulia?
Was it maroon or mahogany?
I traded in the colors of
mourning for the color of his blood,
which now blooms like the head of a
thistle on his bedsheets.
Though my hands are clean I feel
his blood clinging to them and I know
no matter how hard I scrub
it will remain that way.
3. “Judith and her Maidservant”
His head is in a basket now,
which rests on her cocked hip
like she might have held
a child. I am reminded of
how I cradled my husband
to my body before he died
in our bed.
The woven wicker
digs into her like this man
thought his fingertips would
sink into me. We give his
body one last backward
glance. It feels unreal
to gaze upon his body.
Soon his head will be
hung on my city’s walls
and I will finally begin
to rest. My sword lies on
my shoulder and where
the blade meets my skin
I feel no pain.
