Ekphrasis 7: Rachel Rawlins + K. Cohen
March 28, 2007
*
Safe
Here
you’ll find
no racing pulse,
electric touch,
flower folds
or passion’s flush;
no heated gaze,
no sweaty limbs,
no swollen, thrusting
metonyms.
Nobody sins,
no one reclines.
She doesn’t taste or smell his skin.
Not here, their carnal valentine.
No petals were crushed to make these lines.
by K. Cohen
Categories: Ekphrasis
K. Cohen, Rachel Rawlins
qarrtsiluni 
Gotta love those thrusting metonyms! Nice poem. The photo is wonderful, too – nice composition, and the pollen looks absolutely electric against the black. It looks almost like it’s all suspended in space.
The poem is very erotic, precisely through being explicitly non-erotic. A lovely effect. The photo, similarly, is not a photo of anything naked and human sprawled out in reckless abandon in a well-used bed.
Which is not to say we would necessarily *refuse* a photo of something naked and human sprawled out in reckless abandon in a well-used bed. I keep hoping. :)