No. 8

Winter 2005

Lost from that night is the artist
who leaned to this naked back
& inked a grapevine down the spine.

He has become
a shadow against a body,
surgeon’s gloves pressing the design

from an illustrated Bible: vines
curling the names of books,
grape clusters bright

like lanterns. Only a few hours
to stain the skin forever.
When I asked could I take pictures, he said

none that caught his face,
and what remains is pink flesh
rising to needle’s hum,

anyone’s pale back,
green and purple beading like sweat
or jewels. Gone

is the artist, gone even is the girl
grimacing beneath the needle.
Did she cry, bite a towel?

The record reflects only
veins of leaves
over veins of the body,

brown branch tracing
the spine’s length. He included
even the small light shining

from the grapes’ taught skin,
but there is nothing here
of that night, of those

who watched, waiting to celebrate
the moment: Dave Gil, Ben
whose last name I never knew,

those lives just an impression now,
like the shadows on the wall, here,
gray shapes I photograph

because they tell me small pieces
of the days I live in,
of 5 o’clock beer time, of waiting

for someone to come home, all
the attending details: first
the outer door, then the inner,

bolt-slam echoing
in the stairwell,
& twenty creaking steps. The purse

drops to the bed, where she asks,
because she has to, because it’s silent,
is anyone there?

Copyright 2005, Craig Beaven

nidus is an online publication supported by the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh's English Department.