Dudley Stone
Framed
“Integritas. Put a frame around it,”
she said, unpacking Daedalus’
explication of beauty in the Portrait.
Her pencil dropped from desk to floor,
where it rolled beneath my Reeboks.
put a frame around us — walls, doors,
clothes discarded on the floor, dripping umbrellas,
your Siamese curled on my socks
“Everything outside the frame is apart
and other,” she said, “not to be considered.”
rules, rumors, intruding eyes,
Thou Shalt/Shalt Not
“Consonantia next,” she said, words pouring from her
like claret into cut crystal, “all that the frame
contains, line, color, rhythm, harmony — ”
cotton sheets translucent with sweat,
the wild geometry of your hair
across my shoulder
“Lastly claritas,” she said, “radiance,
the essence which bursts all boundaries.”
whatness of our what,
thingness of our thing,
whole universes emerging new
from our mouths’ O,
oh, oh, and how together we solve
the mystery we are apart
I suppose I heard the bell.
I wrote this poem with her pencil.
Other work by Dudley Stone