From the archives – Portrait of a Woman Revealing Her Breasts — Mary Meriam

Portrait of a Woman Revealing Her Breasts

Sensing Tintoretto’s brushes
on her breasts, tender, luscious,
she looks away and faintly blushes.

Can we understand the deal
she made to model and reveal?
Was it for love? Oh, let me feel

this love, then let my fingers slide
along each folded, flowing side
of parted dress and salty tide,

until I touch her strands of pearls.
Now tickled by her auburn curls
and wavy locks, her image twirls

an ocean where I cannot swim
and flailing, drown. Here on the slim
shore of sound, I sigh and limn.

from Autumn Sky Poetry 23 — by Mary Meriam

Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto)’s “Portrait of a Woman Revealing Her Breasts.” 1570. Oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons