When drawing a charcoal sketch with deep breaths,
There must be things that do not move.
For instance, even when the red sunlight tickles and teases,
The apple remains seated, demurely.
The model occasionally turns her right cheek toward the light
To borrow the glow of the sun-ripened red.
To an apple, sunlight is Red.
And Red occasionally commands the apple to adjust its posture.
While braiding spring and summer alternately,
Even as her twin pigtails grow long,
The apple remains seated in the original posture of its first blossom.
Even on days she wants to spin round and round,
The sunlight tells her to stay seated, just like an apple.
As she transcribes the direction of the winds
Blowing from the distant Aran Islands, the apple’s belly grows stout.
The model, possessing not even a hand mirror, turns her left cheek
To heighten the saturation of her crimson hue.
No sunlight is ever satisfied with a single apple.
The stem constantly tries to drop toward private thoughts,
And the apple, captured in Cézanne’s composition since spring,
Can only exhale the scent of wine once late autumn arrives.
When the sunlight, pipe in mouth, crosses its arms,
When someone abruptly plucks the seated apple—
Only then will it become a soul apart from the sun.
