Leading Lady Frame her, instead, as ancient Egypt, A magic-irrational, colour cult object In profile; scan the inverted pyramid Of her lowered eye, apex embedded At the bloom of carmine cheekbone, Eyelid surfaced in lucent limestone Washed over underpainted hues Of shadow mauve and tinted blues, The oval blue-black socket Pool an oasis source or First Cataract Where the deep keyed register enacts Painter’s proofs against the dry plane Of her face; she’s made up again, Head pinned back against a column Of rigid hair. Above, in cadmium Yellow, the little hat’s jammed down Like the sphinx’s paw, drawn As neuralgic hieroglyph or sorcerer’s Trepanning tool. Is the pain her’s, Or fashioned as sardonic painterly barbs? Anyway, it’s her mouth where the sable’s Lingered most, in red and madder lakes, In alizarin crimson, in gestural strokes To emulate the deft control of lipstick Practice (he saw that many times) As the brush creates and follows form, So her lips open and join and firm Through space and light, a spinning rim, A raised relief and a canopic jar To capture and keep some sense of her. Gareth Robinson Gareth Robinson's writing life has spanned print and broadcast journalism, mainly in the public sector in Australia, and work as an analyst for a public sector watchdog agency. He's published poems in Australian Book Review, Meanjin, and Cordite. He lives with his family on a narrow coastal strip, on Dharawal land, under the Illawarra escarpment, south of Sydney. Honeyeaters visit the backyard, cormorants hang around out front.
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June 2025
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