an unrehearsed universe

The Science of Portraiture

She’s commissioning a nude
to stave off tomorrow’s old age,
vanity perfectly placed –
breasts that perked like that
deserve immortality. 

Her husband can’t know. 
The usual story.

I smell her ripeness
from twelve feet away. 

Her clean tangerine scent
mixed with something heavier, sweatier;
clothes binding, lifting, and sealing
her best attributes. 

We haggle over control
before she agrees to my price,
asking if I can store it for her,
going about this all wrong. 

Drawing her eye,
my body’s definitive attention
to her copious charms
unmistakable. 

She leans forward,
displaying cleavage begging for paint
under other circumstances. 

I turn her down
craving the challenge
of making her work
on canvas instead.