​Seated Draped Figure, by Maya Slocum

Seated Draped Figure, by Ludovico Cigoli (Italy) 1559-1613

​Seated Draped Figure 

Pyramidal, your self-hood falls– slides down 
your curved and parted hair, rolling over shoulder
hip and thigh
to meet in folded fabric at your feet. 

To gaze… to tilt… I too am falling, 
that sideways-dipping motion pulls me down 
to thump, heavy, on a seat
of marble. 
My body ripples, coated in 
a silken gown and soothed by the
softest stone. 
Who calls? A name rings out 
and mine is the arm that lifts. 
Suspends. Considers. 

Draped and Duncan-like, I sit, sensing some 
invasion sweet with kinship. 
I have stolen her body, your pose, the space 
of four hundred years pressed flat 
like thin red chalk lines tinged with
moss. 

Pyramidal, my self-hood falls–
settles. 
I stand and leave your gallery, still tilting, 
considering, 
silk residue on my skin and 
marble underfoot. 

Maya Slocum 

Maya Slocum is a New-England based writer, dancer, and ocean lover. She sees her poetry as an extension of her lived experience, and often draws on her relationships with humans, movement, and the natural world as starting points for her work.