The Artist's Wife

She leans back to taste his mouth;
the warmth of his smile tickles her tongue
and catches her breath and ripples her skin
into a silky sheen so that she’s
never felt so beautiful.

She beams like the midday sun
eclipsed by love and romance spun
with golden threads around her heart
as wife and muse to his art -
he’s a poet of light and form.

But the threads pull like puppet strings
before choking her thin
and sucking her whole into dreary nights
and stabbing pain as she finally sees
the fog she’s been walking in.

She’s wasting away, invisible to his eyes
for he had long spied another to share his bed
and bestow sweet words that drop
like diamonds to purrs of rapture and delight,
until again his romantic whims take flight.

A desperate thought sparks alive
from which she may not survive
in her invisible room, in the invisible house
he no longer sees or imagines
so that she’s a vanishing memory.

A stray pencil, a roll of parchment,
she begins sketching her love and loss
with short strokes and a tight hand
so that it doesn’t slip like sand
into the ether, long forgotten.

Angels are drawn circling above
as she kneels without show of anger or love
for her face is but a veil of white
and she has no hands to alight
upon flower or stone or grassy blades.

The danger recedes and in the passing of time
lines lengthen and flow like summer wine;
detail emerging with a steady hand
of that hair, that face, that movement of grace,
she’s visible and whole in shadow and light.

In the doorway passers-by wave hello and goodbye
so a smile plays upon her lips, and as she dips
into the warmth of the sun it catches her breath
and ripples her skin into a silky sheen so
that she’s never felt so beautiful.

She draws people close like fingers to palm
while artistic visions create a balm
that soothes her heart as her spirit flies
past meadows of poppies and starry skies -
she’s a poet of strength and courage.

Shelley