"The best part,"
she said, right hand making little
harp-strums across empty air, "is what
the artist left unpainted, taut silk untouched by
the ink-filled brush – and yet that emptiness
becomes lake here and rising mist there and,
above us, sun saturating autumn clouds.
 
The best part of this poem, I thought – standing
close enough beside her to smell jasmine
in cascading black hair – is the feel
of the silk: glossing coffee-colored skin,
clinging to cleft darkness, imagining
how the fine white weave would
take the ink.