Art School Studies

1

Canceling out the whites,

Which in watercolor meant

The tooth of the paper

Or cold-pressed board

On which the washes took shape.

Even for the nebulous sky.

You worked with brushes,

An elephant-ear sponge,

The mastic you rubbed off

Afterwards, leaving

What you wanted left

Untouched: cloud or caustic

Or the vase into which

You could then trace veins

Of crackle, fine as the sable-

Haired tip of your brush.

Even the runnels of sunlight

On that figure in her tub.

Water in a glitter of water.

Transparent washes

That brought all of it to light.

2

She was naked, then nude,

On that improvised dais.

It could have been a throne,

Given her indifference

Toward us and the drawings

On which we worked—

Neutral gray paper penciled

White with highlights, black

With overlapping shadows—

The flesh posed motionless

In its clefts and folds,

Or put on hold

As she crossed the room,

Pausing, like a sequence

Shot by Muybridge.

A woman alone

With her thoughts for hours,

Ringed by renderings

That could have been forms

Of tribute, fashioned

As they were in her image.