skin love sun water god and skin

MARINE SURFACE, LOW OVERCAST

Out of churned aureoles
this buttermilk, this
herringbone of albatross,
floss of mercury,
déshabille of spun
aluminum, furred with a velouté
of looking-glass,

a stuff so single
it might almost be lifted,
folded over, crawled underneath
or slid between, as nakedness-
caressing sheets, or donned
and worn, the train-borne
trapping of an unrepeatable

occasion,
this wind-silver
rumpling as of oatfields,
a suede of meadow,
a nub, a nap, a mane of lustre
lithe as the slide
of muscle in its

sheath of skin,
laminae of living tissue,
mysteries of flex,
affinities of texture,
subtleties of touch, of pressure
and release, the suppleness of long and
intimate association,

new synchronies of fingertip,
of breath, of sequence,
entities that still can rouse,
can stir or solder,
whip to a froth, or force
to march in strictly
hierarchical formation

down galleries of sheen, of flux,
cathedral domes that seem to hover
overturned and shaken like a basin
to the noise of voices,
from a rustle to the jostle
of such rush-hour
conglomerations

no loom, no spinneret, no forge, no factor,
no process whatsoever, patent
applied or not applied for,
no five-year formula, no fabric
for which pure imagining,
except thus prompted,
can invent the equal.

Amy Clampitt

from What the Light Was Like © 1983

with his wife marthe as his muse, the very spiritual denis painted women bathed in sunlight's gold, goddesses is the wrong word, creations is possibly closer. holy. we are healed by the sight of women, and i think that as long as we are suckled at women's breasts, we all, men and women alike, will love the sight. and clampitt could not compare anything so beautifully to skin without also loving it herself. and who could not. sun, light, water, children, skin, who needs more prayer than this?