After Jean-Antoine Watteau

The body in another century is the body
in my century, the body is mine, soft
in youth, puffy in folds along the stomach.
The skin feels cool against the sheets.
The rounded vowel of her hip,
the small breast, shoulder held upright
by elbow and forearm. She barely notices
her other hand, draped over the side
of the matress, thin fingers useless without
her will pouring into them. She is
as we should be, delighted in flesh
careless, in delight, in time, out of time,
the archetype of the nude girl from which all
others descend, ascend, she turns her head
toward what, something out of the picture,
a mirror, a man, something that fills her,
something that curls her lips into a smile
that make her body imply the scent of violets.
And we will keep her here so much longer
than the body intended, a shape for the eyes
that imagines weight and warmth, the ghost behin.

Poem by Joel Long