Undressing Beauty

(Inspired by H. Matisse’s “The Blue Nude” 1907.)

 

When Grace poses nude

glowing in her pink silence

she shapes her hair carefully

checks the edges of a mirror

for tresses at the temple,

arches of her tattooed brows.

 

She wants students to taste

an artful version of life, lest

they perceive through flesh

her tide of lost opportunity

with the black-dog burden

she’s chosen to breathe.

 

Always attentive to beauty

sometimes, her eyes well up

float off into a downward dog

meditates feelings

balled-up in mothering pangs

for the child she never had.

 by John Di Leonardo

(Judge’s Choice, The Banister, Niagara

Poetry Anthology, Vol. 30, 2015.)

John’s Bio