Danny Fitzpatrick

The Painter to His Muse

Was the you that you turned

as I sat as you sat as 

you turned and my brush

like a horn stripped the shape

of you from the light

the you that you said could not

no not then not now or yet

say the word that I asked

or were you you who faced

these ways at once there

where we tore that word

from time like me not now

what one could start to say?

Bernini

The dimples up her thigh are like

the ghosts of Pluto’s fingers 

in the screaming, clawing marble 

in the room across the ocean,

in the grove of pines 

where afternoon is fading

the dark god sinks his hands 

and feels his eye drawn out

like a drop about to fall 

from the faucet, gathering itself

and stretching toward 

the wet shining tiles,

feels his face stretched like 

a balloon a child hugs

to her naked chest,

squeezing the color from it 

as her skin shows clearer, clearer,

less and less red until

she stands clutching the dark shreds

and spreads her hands 

and then her arms

and stares in silence at the floor until 

she laughs 

as she looks up at you.

Freedom of Expression

Take a watchband for a thigh.

Lift your clasped acrylic fingers 

to a sky sponged on to dress 

your naked wounds. Lie down 

where the surf beads up and let 

the cowries clam you in the key 

of incandescence. Queens of Egypt 

clamor at your skirt. Can a timepiece 

run to silence speak the sun’s eclipse?

Curl up like the primrose by the beach.

Keen the unstrung song that spins linked 

fingers into heart’s blood, spattering 

the calendar. There are wings now 

erupting from the egg shell skin 

along her spine, spreading on the air,

on the water, filling up with light.