Wire Sculpture

She steps through the doorway,
and curtain strings of obsidian beadwork
rearrange themselves like iron filings
in the force field of her slender figure.

She's late. Already the light
has begun to soften
the studio's white vehemence,
the hard shadows of winter elms.

He sits at the drafting table.
Behind him the floor is a chaos
of discarded sketches
and black extension cords.
He nods but does not speak.
She moves to the stereo
touches a power tab
and invisible strings brighten the air
with a harpsichord sonata.

In the cleared space at the center
of the room, she loosens
her shoulder straps
and lets the cream shift slide
into a wreath of shaded folds at her feet.

He watches her move, pliant
and lyrical, against the hardwood
floor's ruled page, and the tip
of his pen grazes the paper
building a supple concordance
like strands of hair adrift in a stream.

The blue star of his torch
bursts, again and again,
into a fountain of prickly sparks
until the obscure circuits,
the sinuous lines of force,
are fused, and flow
through nodes of dying fire.

Cooled on a walnut pedestal
it looks as though the body's music,
the dancer and the dance,
have been stilled forever
in a complex cage of air
but that fugue of intimate tensions
will revive and go on
through beautiful changes
if we should happen to walk around it
or turn it with our fingers in the sun.

 

© George Amabile