Peter Magliocco

You posed nude & fully clothed
reclining with indolent sensuality
while staring candidly into his being
nights emboldened with fragrant musk
& nearby sounds of music's revelry
drugging with desire his ursine bulk

the smell of paint clung to irrevocably,
a second scent more powerful than flesh,
your petite presence exhilarating him
& vanquishing all the nocturnal demons
that later would possess him fully
beyond those royal powers feting him

(more delicately than flowered vines
greenly spreading filigreed patterns
outside his studio where war encroached
with inexplicable, degrading menace),
to close his wounds into beauteous vision
a courtly wealth lavished on his palette,

before deafness stole your music away
from hallowed earth what kingdom bore
a silence stabbed him, deeper than seeing
the burden a maja's breasts conjured
as the last violin went soundless, in tribute
to something no living mortal could hear.