What is done in love is done well.

To draw a woman is to make love to her.

Not with the crude crescendo of sex, but slowly—

through the study of fat and muscle, the way flesh lies over bone.

The stretch of skin. Its surrender. How afternoon light wraps her like a lover’s embrace.

And it cannot be clinical.

Her vulnerability will not allow it.

She disrobes in layers, not only cloth but history—

until she lies as bare as she can bear.

Though the artist wishes to lay open the heart itself, to place upon the dais all the grief, all the love, there is only so much one sitting can hold.

Because this sort of undressing takes years.

And it is done not with fingers, but with trust. With words.

So when he renders the breast, slaving to capture the caress of north light,

it is not merely flesh he paints,

but longing, memory, the armor she built around the fist of muscle beating behind it.

And the eye does not trespass upon her tenderness.

It moves over her like warm water.

And so love is made—

a current passing between the drawer and the drawn,

until they are bound forever in color and light.

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#poetry #wyst #art #artist #painting