Unsolicited elegance. “just paint your picture and be done with it”
she says. Unamused, not impressed. “I do despise this dress with the lowest of my being”
she’ll scoff, and reach for the decanter. “Madame, you mustn’t move, I must capture your essence”
aye sir, you capture her essence, and aye, sir a portrait can speak a myriad of words
But are they mine, sir?
she turns, the writer she’s invited to entertain her on this errand that some father’s suitor has put her to, it’s the writer that has caught as they say ‘the rub’.
Aye, sir, the artist has the eye for capturing beauty in a moment.
But tell me what you see that eyes can’t. (and now he has her attention)
I see
Something wild. And flourishing, like the crimson wildflowers of the banks in the Heart of Darkness. I see a beautiful something that has been harnessed for posterity’s sake (curse posterity and the sake of his libation) harnessed and shaped into something, while fetching,
is more like a cage than a display. She is not to be displayed. Why, the only thing I see that you maybe have put in perspective for the rest of the populace, sir,
(and now for reasons unbeknownst even to himself he finds himself in the throes of a tiff)
is the manner in which she folds the front of her satin! Godssake man! The wildest part of her that we can see is the crumpled fabric held begrudgingly in her grasp. In the whiteness of her knuckles, which, by the grace of Odin himself seem to have escaped the sculpting of your oils on this canvas!
The writer, exasperated, throws himself onto the Louis XV loveseat that pretentiously slides, screeching on the tile in exclamation (the dogs have since started and stopped barking due to the passion of the writer’s exposition). Applying pressure to his temples with thumb and forefinger, a hand accentuates a visor over the eyes.
“just paint your picture and be done with it”