The Night Painter

Presently I am swimming in limbo
with only a stingy crescent moon for company.
 
I would like to complain to God
that I am meant to be locked down by gravity,
sympathy, the symphony of sleep.
 
Would a sunlit room in heaven 
be available?  A generous expanse of window,
 
a wall of tropical colors
where I paint an alluring woman sprawled
on a sofa—she counts herself
 
middle-aged—and along her meaty flank
I smear a shimmer of electric blue.
 
In a clever broad brushstroke
feathered with viridian, her belly pours 
from her ample hips.
 
Her fingers don’t coyly touch 
humid curls to conceal and promise; instead
 
her hand strokes the rich outpouring 
of her skull, her elbow curved and pointed
flames, her wide arm an incandescence.
 
Her loose breasts like dog’s muzzles
quest for your hand’s caress.
 
Under her shoulder, a shadow 
of wild forest, like the mad night
protecting the vulva’s loud lipstick,
 
and the melon-flushed throat of the vagina
disappearing under the mute swell 
 
of buttock and the flirt of waist,
but wanting to sing like the other
mouth with its flashy bone billboards.
 
Her hair has the full attention of the sun
and each tendril is in full rebellion,
and the brush licks her tongue
(or the other way around) stained by
the juice of disobedient fruit.
 
The nose wants to be painted a certain angle
to show the nostril’s curve and dignity.
 
But the eyes. Should they be divided 
by the nose’s pride or pushed aside, a cubist stare,
searching not for your admiration,
 
your clever eyes, the whim of your lips,
but for some invisible hope over your shoulder—