"I remember her as she was in the photograph taken by Cesarre, a superb
young woman, triumphant in her own beauty, her genius. And then in 1913,
the emaciated, terrified creature huddled in a filthy apartment, shutters
permanently closed to the light. So much for 30 years. In between there
had been Auguste Rodin."
            -Paul Claudel

His eyes were greedy, black
coals of a snowman's face
sparked and lapped at the cream
of my skin until I began to flow
honeyed verdancy into the shadier
clefts of my fluted perception.
Architect of my cathedral,
he entered me on his knees,
poked spatulate fingers
in warm fluidity and rippled
marble shadows with muscle and sinew,
devoid of pulse. He had no heart,
just eyes, hands, a devouring
talent fractured lucid flesh
with chiselled persistence until
my blood cooled to alabaster rivers,
my tongue a pebble clamped
between cold lips; moonstone
eyes baleful as lunacy. Medusa.
He carved his vision into my altar,
scaled my bell-tower and pitched
his name in a glissando that shook
France, the world, history
repealing itself, my own name
a forlorn echo swallowed by his
orgiastic chimes. Beneath the dust-
sheet in the yellowing afternoon
my exposure clawed and mewled,
and when at last he withdrew,
the plaster cast of my humanity
crumbled in utter emptiness.

"In love all that counts is the act. Everything else is detail, no doubt
charming, but just detail."
            - Auguste Rodin