Like a Man Gone Mad: Poems in a New Century

The Time It Takes to Tell

69 The Time It Takes to Tell Posing contrapposto for the class, she seemed to say, “I’m here in body, but the rest of me is otherwhere.” And why not? Standing nude for minimum wage invites escape. Her breasts and hips were fortyish, her pubes a darker auburn than her bangs, her appendectomy not quite obscure. Regardless, the music of a woman’s body sang in her, contained and hinted at like rubies in a purse. Some of the student painters caught it on their canvases—echoes of de Milo or the shameless maja. The model herself seemed unaware of what her body meant. During a break she asked what time it was: “I never wear a watch at work because a watch would make me look not naked.” I thought no more of that as she resumed her role as Woman in the name of all her gender. Posed, her body changed into a bet that said, “While the loser in me says 70 I just might win, the winner tells me I could lose.” That seemed to leave her motionless in mid-bet, shielded like a secret in the sisterhood of female skin while being re-created on a dozen easels. The silence in the studio was almost churchly. Later, with the class dismissed and she alone and bare, she found her watch and strapped it on her wrist. And just as suddenly as that, she seemed no longer naked. ...