The Edo Ballerina
What Utamaro could not see
Is gracefully shown to me
You toned muscles tensely show
The measure of you beauty grows
Sharply quivering from your feet
Your supple thighs invoking meet
Your passions bursting forth in haste
Rushing around your slender waist
Swirling by your breast and heart
Into hand and eye and art
As I sit and draw alone
I marvel how God made such bones
I see the beauty of your back
Sinews angled into cracks
Then your shoulders broad and wide
Your finger tipsy radiance glides
I see my souls desire ablaze
The whole of Edo in you gaze
A 1000 Ukiyoe vie
To match the mystique of your eyes
But none surpass your timorous face
Or move my pencil as I trace
The delicate lines of your pure neck
In my heart's secret circumspect
Richard Field
2003
