thinking

Parmigianino Thinking

Lines perpetually slipping into dream—
in his mind they agitate like hands on water
tracing the grid of a shadowy cage.

And now they are here again-
two forms dancing, swirling, laughing,
unscrolling into ribbons of pen and wash.

They descend to circle each other,
tilt their heads and join hands
that atomize into a cloud of red chalk.

A wand lifts and moves out over space
retracing the gestures of shoulders and limbs
lingering in their own transparencies.

Two bodies coalesce not once but twice
and rise like dark quivering trees,
their branches woven with blossoms of silk.

Like ancestral ghosts they flutter in the air
or maidens whose heads bear baskets
of olives, figs, and wine.

They flow far back into themselves
through rivers that unendingly reflect
the movements of their dance.

Through leaves, shadows, a blue-violet sky,
their yearning contours pale to dissolve
and then come gliding back

into a tender paraphrase of reeds
gathered in the wind's distracted sway—
lines leaving only to return.