“This is my outlet. This is my intimacy.”

May 13

Written By A. Hervey

Would you call it love,

committed to one painting, heart and soul,

mind and focus, married as vision

to its fruit,

as pigment bound to oil?

Though I’ve never once pressed my lips

to that canvas, it’s taken everything I’ve given—

Warmed, the paint between

my body and the canvas, blurring the lines

with soft fuzz and moistened finger tips

Stirred up against every blushed detail;

the softness of the hair, the light, the

gentleness of the smile, the foliage,

an hour alone in the glimmer white of the eye,

because perfection of the gentle gaze

is beheld in the waxed layers

upon layers,

upon warmth, upon touch,

upon layers of revision — of love,

of color nudged and softened

to her body, of work

eroded from my wrists,

to the very gaze that rests

in the crooks of my palms and my nape.

In short, no. I wouldn’t quite call it

“love,” rather, manipulation of some sort;

or a moment, or several, of beauty.

A. Hervey is a young black poet born in Mississippi, and is preparing for the release of her first book, Wasp to a Fig.

The Artists