ARTIST/MODEL T.D. WALKER
​
1. The Model as Heroine, 1931
Here, he'd said and nodded after she'd arrived, late
morning light filtering into his studio, the door
propped open. Here, he'd said, pointing his stained
finger at the closet she could change in. She'd known
where to go—she'd been here before. Had he not
remembered her or had the light changed her or had the weeks?
Here, he'd said, after she'd emerged in the pale blue gown,
moving her into place behind the model man, the ranger
or the captain or the scientist she'd hide behind, here.
How many times had she worn this particular
dress? How many times had she stood behind
him, not him, but some form a body made? Here,
she sees the model man is an officer from no ship
they could retreat to, and she is the world he protects.
He presses her back, away, toward safety. She is a whole
planet, fluid and blue. She is the world, and she is holding up
the world with its people unaware of his hands on her
body. Its people, who she was this morning, drinking weak coffee.
Its people, who she was last night, staring up, sleepless, her ceiling
warning her that there are stars, but she won't see them. Its people
who she was days and days ago, back here in a pink dress,
a white dress, a yellow dress, buckling her sandal, wondering
where, once again, he'd put her.
2. The Artist, 1931
One last time, just this
once—
Of course, I'd need him
dressed as a captain. I need
to paint a captain. The story
always ends with the captain
saving the ship, the planet,
the ones cowering behind him--
never himself.
3. The Model as the Alien Queen, 1931
Later, they'll figure out we were the same
woman. The face he'd paid too much
attention to, painted too near to life. As if
the artist tried not to see the heroine
staring at my ray-gun rigged up,
dangling from the space where I'll be. Her
fear not fear enough, not yet. The captain
throwing himself into the ray-gun's beam:
how many times have we heard this story?
She'll go home, the model, the straps
from the blue dress still holding her
shoulders down as if something were drowning
her. There is too much neatness to my life.
I'll die from a battle blow. The captain's
defense too late to save him from my last shot.
She'll be left here, the heroine, abandoned on this
moon, unable to contact the world she left, unable
to decide whose body she should weep for.
4. Aboard the Gen Ship, 2131
He'll read the image
of the words, over
and over, her son, the next
generation born here
aboard this ship.
How strange to be
an explorer with nowhere
to go except down
the hall, into the archive.
After he's read the stories
too many times the ship
will help him recall
the count. After she'd read
those digitised pages, her
fingers nearly smooth
with imagined ink, she'd
told herself how
she would have stood,
were she the captain.
How she would have
stood on the world
she will never see herself.