A PORTRAIT OF MELA SUSÉ

It’s not the easel red-faced posing bare,

It’s the brushes that keep me from daubing

A palette of magentas and iridescent blues,

It’s not the swirl and eddy of your contours,

It’s that brushes have no bristles to tell

The legends scrolled across your brow,

It’s not the blackness of your Native hair,

It’s the yellow days the sun reflected off

Each strand, the nights caught in hard-bitten rain,

It’s not the chocolate of your Castilian eyes,

It’s the wistful tears shed for the poet’s lines,

For the pain they have soaked in,

It’s not the redness of your Grecian lips,

It’s the thousand tales they might whisper,

The ones learned through their silence,

It’s not the colors that foil my ambition,

It’s the canvas that blanches from fear

That if I painted you, the world would fall in love.