First 
Rue Huang 

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-1908**

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it is dawn,
amidst the poppy field is a freshly left bed,
slept-in pillows still rising like warm dough,
unmade blankets ruffled like blooming roses.

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last night his face came so close to hers
everything else slipped away from the
peripheral of her moonlit cheekbones,
closer, warmer, they touched lightly – like dry static –

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fingers sealed into a tight embrace,
faces turned faceless,
meshed patterns of nightgowns shimmered
into a glowing lantern in the dark.

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his touch was paint drying
on canvas, on her shrinking skin,
drying to his caress: an end of a beginning,
an anticipation quenched

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by flesh, temptations frozen into
metal bedframes, curiosity unraveled into
looming tenderness,
a beginning.

 

it is dawn,
the first light coppers the sky,
the field of poppies nod in unison,
the bed is emptied, the field, emptier.

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**To view Gustav Klimt’s painting, follow this link.