Can't I Stay Like This?

I stood again

before a woman

I painted long ago.

The woman

sat on a wooden chair.

Her clothes were neat,

her head slightly bowed.

Her two hands

rested on her knees.

Back then

I began with the face.

Eyes. Nose. Mouth.

“Would you

lift your head?”

The woman

looked at me.

Only for a moment.

“Can't I stay

like this?”

I lowered my eyes

from the face to the shoulders.

The arms.

The two hands.

One hand

covered the other.

“Stay as you are.”

The woman

lowered her eyes again.

I

painted her in that pose.

Now

her name would not come to me.

Only the title

remained.

Nemo.

In Latin,

one who has no name.

The woman in the painting

sat in that pose

even while I searched for her name.

This time

it was I who bowed my head a little.

One hand

quietly

covered the other.