DIANA LEAVES HER BATH

    (after Francois Boucher)

 

I tramped through the woods,

The image of a painting

Dazzling my vision,

Like the noonday sun stared at

With presumptuous folly—

 

Seeking that lovely

Bare leg raised like my ardor,

Aching for contact,

Breathless for her breathing form:

Wilderness was my reward.

 

It is just as well:

If my dreams had come true,

What would have happened?

I would have crossed the fine line

Between the ideal and the real.

 

She would have killed me,

If I had come upon her

Unexpectedly—

Not because her guard was down,

Her warlike demeanor dropped

 

With her proud wardrobe,

But because I’d seen the look

In her dull eyes;

Her flesh so desirable

She seemed without desire,

 

With an innocence

Bordering on stupidity.

And before I’d guessed

There was nothing there but paint

Stroked upon a canvas void,

 

I’d have been struck dead

By the arrows of her wrath:

The indignation

Of a deity unveiled

Without due adulation.