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Antony Nicholls

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Death as a Nude

My father lifts the videocam steadily
as his newly divorced ex-wife tells me,
‘We didn’t expect the perfect answer
because there isn’t one.  All we’ve done
is agree, and that’s for you’.  She smiles.

Later in our nicely dysfunctional lives,
I paint my mother as a nude. The idea’s
to create a tension and reveal taboos
within historical poses. Is she beautiful?
At first no. Her torso looks reluctant

as a subject after sixty years should,
ashamed of itself. She hides her face.
Only later an intimacy breaks in, flesh
acquires the yellow warmth, softness
of freshly baked bread.  She’s lifesize

but ugly and proud, like a murderer.
All the negatives appear more valid.
Nothing in modern life’s really ugly.
When seen, it’s given force.  However,
at times I remember they divorced.

The light I throw on her glares out,
a sudden flash of exposure, the face
staring darkly that caused such pain.
The living are bad company. It’s right
that dead, they’re buried or burned.


First Prize of the Bedford Open Poetry Competition 1998

Page(s) 68

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