Читать книгу Patient Zero - Tomas Q. Morin - Страница 8

NUDIST COLONY

Wind-whipped, ear-clapped

by the rocky thunder of the coast,

they cross the wet grass

in burnished loafers, sandals

twined on the grounds

to drink and merrymaking.

Inland, they face the empty

hour between lunch

and dinner in a frail

building with a barking

door and incandescent

lighting that wraps the matte

surface of their trunks

in an amber glow. Sheets

of paper shuffle, chalk

boxes are laid out,

oils are stirred, sharpened

pencils line up in formation,

hips swivel and settle

on wooden stools

legged in metal. She

enters and her shoes click

across the white tile

as she assumes the center

of the room in a pencil skirt

and matching jacket, taupe

blouse and run stocking.

Her husband sets a flock

of gooseflesh up his neck

and starts to chalk her legs

from memory: his first

black dash and swipe

might be an eel

beached on blanched rock

but for the second

slash against the page

that frames the long thigh

and the knot of the knee.

She shifts her weight

from one foot to the next,

scarlet-heeled, toe tips

white with pressure.

Soft rock in hand,

he drags it slow

on a fresh wall of white

and applies the pressure

necessary to make her

more than a pool

of smudges and parts.

Wet clay in the corner

begins to harden

and blended watercolors

matte the predrawn

run of the ribs,

the swaddled shoulders

grained in autumn

tones like the disrobed

grasses in drains

that suffer cold-scald

and wind-jag.

The wrists busy now

lashing and hooking

hair to the scalp,

skin-cap to the face,

drifting shallow wrinkles

at the eye-pinch,

southerly to the ear,

leveled around the neck

like the soft-piled lines,

ruddy-pale-white,

on the brassy cheek

of the dusk-christened cliffs.