The Muse

Fingers of hot Greek sun
rake his naked chest
like the nails
of an ardent lover

Lover
Anna
A crystalline spider’s web
in morning sunlight.
Delicate. Fascinating.
Wrapped in her silken body
she’d held him
a helpless but willing captive.

He’d tried to paint her,
to hold the image of
warm, rounded flesh
the play of light
on her skin
but
she’d taken the brush
from his hand
‘That’s not me’

He knew she wouldn’t stay
like a wisp of smoke
he’d try to hold in his hand.
Her memory now
a siren’s song
tormenting
when he drifted
too far
into the ocean
of forgetting

the tangle of limbs
the sounds
the smells
that had been Anna
in his life
and in his bed.

The essence of Anna
had eluded him.
Now brushes lay
in dry repose and
virgin canvases
taunted,
untouched by paint,
or passion