Fragmented Woman in Chiaroscuro

Blocking the resistance of sinuous pillows,
she claims her place on the couch,
and braces to face unretractable stains,
glad to undo herself piece by piece.

 “Right arm up, chin down. Hold the pose,
 and talk about yourself
 to meet me on my scythe’s path.

 More so than the light falling
 on your porcelain skin,
 give me your suffering,
 your nightmares,
 your body’s mars and ripples;
 so I brush around you
 the thunder in me:
 a whole sigh, an entire sorrow
 as a coarse raw umber slap,
 leaping from cages of evil-eyed villains
 tenacity of purple rage in a half inch square,
 and dried blood of a double-crossing phantom
 crumbling down the easel in alizarin dark.”

Through slender cuts,
she appears, again and again,
her fetal curl stunning the eyes,
on thumbnails sketched with rapid strokes,
and slow extractions
of wounds
from the womb.

The hunter and the hunted,
both in fragments,
scattered; which is which,
does it matter?
On the broadside of the canvas,
with conspiratory gravity,
passions are scouring her image.