John Barton - book buff

             Egg tempera on gesso panel, 1994

Taut prose stripped bare

His skin stretched by time, the relaxed lines
Of muscle underneath still
Firm as he sits

Nude on the highest

Tread of the little staircase before the stacks, his body
Twisted reaching upwards for another volume
Titian, Signorelli, Raphael

Emblematic

Forces you always draw upon, mastery one more way for his
Torqued form to know you by, though by now any
Pose you return him to is

Signatory

Comfortable, his eyes scanning books irregularly sized with brightly
Coloured spines he loves to touch, your brushstrokes witty
Uninvasive as the heart’s quiet

Punctuation

Eggshells cracking while he reads, yolks warmed gliding
From palm to palm, each squeezed
White-free from the snug

Privacy

Of its membrane into pigment, droplets of water added until balance
Is found so, once dry, nothing crumbles, so he won’t
Crumble, this exposed man

Almost forty

Years with you still more textured, layered, in this instance reaching
Forever across the ages, fingers poised to leaf through
Naked potential