Madame X’s
décolletage
stands bright
against her black dress,
shining and cinched
at the waist,
and my shirt, cotton
and crew-necked.
She balances
against the table,
her hand a vise
around the edge.
I imagine her hidden
fingers clawing
the underside,
and her leaning wrist snapping.
The elbow’s turned out,
straining en pointe.
Her head twists
away from me. Nape-curls
bezel her neck.
I stare, willing her
to snap, or flinch,
or crick to distract me
from her exposure,
her shock of skin
and its smoothness.
It arouses me. Her skin,
so unlike mine
with its scar
as eye-catching
as a diadem
on my shoulder.
I pose like her,
shoulder tight,
the scar rising
like a pearl I scored
into the nacre
of my own skin.
Worse still, it’s set
among the seed pearls
of scabs and pocks
and scoured pores
scattered like the syllables
of dermatillomania.
What shame I want
X to have:
Sargent forced
to shade her bottle
into that fan,
curtained rotten teeth
behind lips, or stare
her bloodshot eyes
away on the backdrop.
