Gauguin Girl

He saw my

hibiscus face in sunlight,

strong feet in warm dust,

eyes that soaked up the world,

thighs grasping heat from a horse’s flank.

We listened to wind singing in palms,

he placed the flower behind my left ear,

subtle as the scent of gardenias.

He sought to capture

something in me,

beyond me.

I stood beneath the tree,

in whose wood

he carved a face

like mine.

Bodies of the sensual world,

return to the earth.

The piece of pua,

a relic of what we were,

he stroked it as he stroked my face,

made it what he wanted to be.

You see I was strange.

You see I was beautiful.

I was

alive.