Nude Model # 5

Saturday morning Sunny Windy on West 8th Street ETA New York Studio School 8:55 am On time Greet the moderator Say nothing to the sculptors I Just Skin muscles and bones Strip naked Short poses Five minutes Suggested poses Not Rodin Henry Moore Abstract I more obtruse Five minutes Change position Mind Blank Artists work lumps of clay Myopic I can't see their fingers Only their hands Molding the clay Into a form Not me But me as they see me Naked Three more poses Five minute break Clay taking shape Not me yet My mind a blank Not silent Back in 2011 I laid my hands on a Henry Moore In a London Park Bronze An unyielding metal Yet the work of his hands remained on the statute. Decades later From the 1950s But bronze doesn't give way to hands Nor marble Nor stone Nor plaster Only clay and flesh response to touch My mind not blank A lover clavicle Gabrielle A shoulder blade shorn of an angel wing Candida The pelvis of Sharon The hand of Mem My wife On the other side of the world Straight lines shadows scribbled curves No Venus de Milo In my mind I open my eyes The artists mold the clay To their visions Of me A woman slices through my abdomen Adds more clay Lookong less than a pond toad Every clay sculpture different A different me One I never see Then it's 1pm Done for the day No more naked till next week Ready for Nude Model # 6