“Breathe light into the page,” he said –

as if it really could be done.

As if the painting were a great, illuminated book.

And while he stood there talking

with his calm face uplifted, the cup of coffee

perched before him on the lectern like a dove,

something foreign flew through the room

and burned her breast, weakened her legs.

She had always been bewildered by the body –

the wood dowel pointing at the fibula,

the cage of ribs she’d never known

went all around from front to back.

So when he came and stood behind her,

and they gazed down at that heap of black lines

she’d drawn to trace the human form,

which did not understand how one hand folds another,

or how the penis rises from the center, like Venus on the foam,

she wanted to reach out and touch something,

and when he leaned on the desk, say, Lean on me.