Poem: "You Ask Me If You Could Paint Me"
You Ask Me If You Could Paint Me here comes another, this one with a brush instead of a book, or rope, or whip Dilruba Ahmed, “The Other Side (on Gauguin)” If you will paint me, paint with the good book. Its leather smelling of tanneries and smeared crimson makes a lifelike print. The sermon on the mount may tattoo in blue the blessed head. Paint also with a rope, rub it across the hands that all may see my long self-restraint and guess my release. Then nail the hemp to the canvas, top right corner, to outface me with its reality. With your brush, whip my torso into flesh. The violence without must be met by violence within. Strike! Harder! Let my body writhe, a commotion contained in the cool and hard figure of a pear. for Valerie