I wonder if the old painters knew
That as they let her go
That arrow
Let her fly
as they tickled
a cherry blush out of canvas
Every jerk rendering a spasm of
Peachy skin
A Slash of jade-muddled azure
For eyes
Lips pursed into pink carnations
That she would drop into us
With all the sudden violence
Of a crack in the sky
And that on
The angular cheekbones of
Of an elevated muse
The little colored kids
Would break themselves
And each wound would
whisper a beauty
The way generals whisper
bombs onto houses
A whisper of what we never
could be.