Rafaela as you see her now seated upon the sofa
Her soft body unveiling itself
Will be the most humanized portrait of the lot
And the most famous
Painted in the same rotund angular
Style her mistress will be known for
Yet with more depth and feeling
Less sharp and rigorous than
The dead eyed minxes that came before her

Emotion clearly shows in her face
A sadness in the eyes
A haughty acceptance
In her lips as if she’s
Doing something she once
Loved but now it’s killing her
To sit, pose and be painted
For hours on end while
Losing something of herself, of her heart
With each brush stroke and paint dab

A languorous slow death in a Parisian garret
With the somnolent summer air blowing
Breezily into autumn, all ochre and apricot tart
The tartness slowly turning the green gauzy moss upon the trees
Into the dead brown they shall soon become
Crackling beneath the feet of the busy bustling
Pre-war Parisians below lost in their own self-importance

While Rafaela waits for the final sigh of contentment as
The brush is laid down and her mistress looks up and
Over at her with gimlet green eyes, angling her
Blonde curled head toward the bedroom
indicating the commencement of the final act of the day

The ribbons that bound them now loosening more each day
To be finally tossed away, just when Rafaela needed them
Tightened most…understanding as she does now
They were never real, just an accoutrement
A means to an end all laid out
To serve what her mistress really loves: a blank canvas.