Air We Breathe
for Erica James

take my breath
now she could
recently she did

gave it back, she's kind
she let me live

lets me look
does not obstruct

has she been an artist's model
class of artists
etching, sketching,
brush stroking as she reads
Melville's Moby Dick

subject lit by candle flame
by candle light
to suggest a time gone by
to suggest long ago

subject to undress and to address
until fixed as if alive
breathing, heaving,
sighing on canvas, on paper

real, she exists upon
the air we breathe, I breathe

dress between us like drape
with two hands to pull across, aside
to let in daylight

when already, with her dress on
I can hardly breathe

imagining the curves, the gullies
the alleyways

she giggles, eases the ache
deep ache of imagination

able easily to pass through cloth
carry a cross or her, bare,
to wonderland


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
1:30 p.m. 12.07.08