Diane K. Martin, "Life Drawing"

 

LIFE DRAWING

 

Some are born to it,

but you must acquire

 

innocence. You want 

the dove to whisper

 

in your ear as the Holy 

Ghost of the Christmas 

 

cards told the Virgin.

Or, at least, to strip 

 

away knowledge so

you can see the angle

 

this honed line makes

with that shadow, not

 

to say leaf for that

serrated shape or bud 

 

for green unfurling

but follow the path

 

the pencil takes

unlearning

 

Adam’s naming,

returning

 

to the garden, god

of your own creation.

 

 

Diane K. Martin’s work has appeared in Field, Poetry Daily, Zyzzyva, Harvard Review, Narrative, Plume, Rhino, and many other journals or anthologies. She won the 2009 Erskine J. Poetry Prize from Smartish Pace. Her first collection, Conjugated Visits, a National Poetry Series finalist, was published in 2010 by Dream Horse Press.