Naked Woman / Naked Man

Peter Schwartz

She could get naked on fifteen or sixteen levels. Could bare her bones like Cleopatra and send telegrams with her eye shadow.  Her hands were vines flaunting the illusion they'd never let go. And for all this her eyes were still the purest of delicate, French soap. After twenty-eight years of sharpening the edges of the hole in my chest, she made me alive for six decadent days.

Since then, she's been everything from demon to nun. My memory's changed her jaw into the curve of a mandolin, and her breasts into a delicatessen. Her hair has remained seaweed. I've put her everywhere from a concentration camp to a ski lodge, from Paris to Rome to Texas City. 

Were there still a crow's path to her plush balcony, she'd pet my imagination like an oriental cat.  Feed me from her chocolate box of secrets, not quite enough, as in accordance to the ancient Torah of Romance, but she'd get me through relatively whole.  She would.

Peter Schwartz is a painter, poet and writer. He's also an associate art editor for Mad Hatters' Review. His artwork can be seen all over the Internet but specifically at: www.sitrahahra.com He's had hundreds of paintings, poems, and stories published both online and in print and is constantly submitting new work as if his very life depended on it. His last show was at the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in Chelsea NYC.

He also has a new chapbook available titled The Nowhere Glow, which can be found/purchased at: http://www.ditchpoetry.com/trainwreckpress.htm