The Story of Her As Artist’s Model
Paul Cordeiro
She looked as innocent as Joan Of Arc
posing for her sculptured bust.
Not a wife with two kids and mortgage payments.
And she wouldn’t wear a cross
between her small breasts
even at a biker’s wedding.
So why would she do this?
Sit like a saint in blouse, or take it off,
and wear nothing, not even Rio’s bikini cut
as do catalogue chicks.
Clayton Fuller, the artist,
who put oversized boobs
on the Onset Indian Maiden
said, “Your head is so exquisite.”
Her library coworkers were jealous,
And gossiped and snickered,
as if posing for him was indecent.
That changed her mindset.
Dollars swimmed in her head.
And she did sit, but, I objected when
she left her top button open to the breeze
as if she’d give him and his girlfriend
what he wanted and more. A sex object
to turn into art for cash?
A mummy for the ages?
So I said something unpleasant.
That she looked crass as them now
and put a mirror up to their faces.
They never called us back.
And put the bust in the workshop shed,
instead of in the Metropolitan.
Was I wrong to hold her back from fame?
As Antony must’ve kept Cleopatra
from her snakes and politics
for a while. I said, ’Let’s get
free from this claycaked house, it smells
a sell out and a shit hole to extravagance.
I kept her for myself and loved a while longer.
