a photograph of a photgraph
The photograph's
undated
but in ecstatic color
unlike most of the hasty
b&w porn.
Bettie's posed
in the surf
of some deserted
spit of beach,
looks like Jersey
probably cold
as hell
tho' you couldn't tell
from Bettie.
The sand's as white
as her two-piece
that's either
a bathing suit
or silk underwear
almost see-thru wet.
The foam clings
to her calves
like Venus,
self-reproductive,
and her elongated arms
are thrown wide
to the bay-breeze
showing off
the clean musculature
down to clear line
of veins as visible
as anything
Leonardo
might have conjured . . . .
Though he'd never have
conjured Bettie.
Not that joker's smile
with two full rows
of cheese-cake teeth,
the frankness of her chin
and poptart cheeks.
Not the simple X
of her features,
sexually unambiguous,
dark eyebrows and eyes
that hide nothing--
a wisp of dark hair
across her forehead
displaced by the breeze
that a cameraman
might have fretted over
but not Bettie,
certainly not Bettie.
Yes maybe she is
sucking in her stomach,
and maybe pitching
forward at the waist
to give her breasts
their maximum heft
and maybe tease us
with her crotch.
But even this seems
perfectly natural,
no artist's trick--
the smile, the hair,
the shoreline all assure
as does the moon
barely visible
in the North Atlantic haze,
there,
to the upper right,
almost cropped,
but there,
beyond the bump of dune,
telling us it's morning
and this is Bettie,
who like a goddess
asks us nothing
in return,
absolutely nothing--
knowing we have
nothing else
but simple adoration
to give.