THOUGHTS OF A RECLINING NUDE

The only sound heard now for forty-five minutes

has been the mechanical click of the clock.

The students are lost in the canvas they’re painting -

except for McGuire, who has got painter’s block.

For Jimmy McGuire has no paint on his brush yet;

he studies me closely with one eye half shut

his thumb held at arm’s length, he’s sighting along it -

expressed concentration but mind full of smut.

He’s telling the tutor that he cannot capture

the decadent curve of my arm on the rest,

or the shadow that’s cast by the tilt of my neck

or the fold in the scarf that is draping my breast.

It’s the end of the session and I’m off to lunch now

and notice in passing McGuire’s tortured nude.

Picasso–like squiggles of squares, lines and circles

in red, black and blue, and distastefully crude.

No doubt after lunching on meat pie and lager,

the pervert will turn up again - dirty snake!

Still..

At the end of the day I’ll be thirty pounds richer

and poxy McGuire can go jump in the lake!