Portrait

Just once, to sit without her there.
Each time the artist comes she curls
her lilac cheek, swings her charcoal hair,
cold as a halberd blade, before me.
I am effaced.

The flame of my mane dims;
my skin thins like whey
in her strange, sad stare.
The trunk of me radiates light;
my head ghosted in shade.

She thinks we are silver and gold.
He paints us with eyes only for each other.
And I am eclipsed again
by that dark half
who will not fade.