Control, by Helen Heery

Model Reclining, by Matthew Arnold Bracy Smith (UK). 1933.

Control
 
I follow your gaze, you study my flesh
as your paintbrush strokes me onto canvas.
You search every contour of my body
and with an urgent need to capture me
you conjure me up, close enough to touch,
and with the sweeping bristles of your brush
you smudge in my hair with dabs of Lamp Black,
then with your knife you scrape some of it back.
You slap oil paint onto palette and mix
Zinc White with a hint of red to make pink,
then you add yellow and a dot of green;
with colour control you flesh in my skin.
You, with expressive spontaneity,
smear me in paint, mark me your territory.
 
Helen Heery

Helen Heery took up writing six years ago but is relatively new to submitting poems to magazines. However, two of her poems appear in Gazing at Gaia,  an anthology published in 2017 by Manchester poets in support of The Manchester Buddhist Centre.