Figure Drawing

A Poem by Laura-Ashlee Twiford

She is the one clothes-less, yet I feel nude
and bare to coarse, yet true, reflections. I
try to be loyal. Draw her deliberately.
I’m nervous in covers, but not because
my thoughts bring me to her place of focus
and public nakedness. She is confidence.
The model is a subject of beauty,
not objectified— she’s honored.
The artists? We are at her mercy.
Reverent stillness of body and eyes
say the words, “tell me how I am me” and
for fifteen minutes we are told to move,
capture the pose, mild openness, everything.
Clothing cannot cover worry to miss
proportion, perspective, tucks of tummy
curves of arms to shoulder, anything to
smudge appreciation, or be false while
she is real. I am not naked, she is.
Vulnerability, put me to work.
Graphite, let me show her lines and shadows.
White pages are nakedness. I think she knows.