A Rendering by Rodin

The rigid ax of your shoulders
cut through spine and neck
In an unpleasant slaughter.
It is the soft pregnant belly
and swinging teats that caresses
and folds you into woman.

I picture Rodin, with his love
for you, chiseling
Heavy thighs, smoothing
Away the marble dust with
Until any more pressure
would bruise you.
He brushed the suppleness

Michelangelo had his boys,
But Rodin laboured his love
Cutting dimples and supple
calves that many saw only as
pressure against heavy fabric
The dusty chalk of breath
Under the file that
brings your details under
Gravity's heft.

Your roundness
pulled to earth
away from ribbed back
and sharp bones

I search in your face for a
rendering that would make
you live on paper. Your belly
like a sac of flower
Your legs and ass like gleaming
Shells -- your breasts
Breath-holding cheeks
underwater.