Half-Naked Woman with a Coin by Heather M. Nelson

Half Naked Woman with a Coin, by Jacob Adriaensz Backer, 1636.

 
 
Half-Naked Woman with a Coin
 
The view is simple:
 
a whore in cerulean.
 
I’m not looking
 
at you, but asking
 
you to look
 
where my eyes are pointing:
 
first at my breasts,
 
then to the coin in my hand.
 
 
Make yourself comfortable-
 
you won’t be listening,
 
my mouth does the talking.
 
Look-it’s approachable, just slightly
 
open between teeth barely visible
 
you’ll see a supplicant bit of tongue,
 
glistening within.
 
 
My left side, you’ll avoid
 
it’s draped deep in the sheen
 
of dropsy folds soon fallen.
 
You’ll not see what I mean
 
to keep hidden, under budding
 
breasts, pushing up like soft pigeons.
 
Heather M. Nelson
 
Heather M. Nelson says: "I'm a poet, teacher, mother and recovering attorney based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I studied writing under the poet C.D. Wright as an undergraduate at Brown University. Most recently I have studied poetry with Tom Daley and Barbara Helfgott Hyett. I am a member of Poemworks, the workshop for publishing poets. My work has appeared in Constellations and The Somerville Times."