Bas-Relief Poem by Lonnie Hicks

She stepped up
and removed her coat placing it beside her
and turned slightly.

She took her cocked hat, twisted it
and let it fall to the floor;
it landed askew.

Hesitating she dabbed her eyes
to remove the makeup there
and the foundation too.

The pins in the hair were identified
pinched and removed;
each pin planted in the pin-cushion on the bureau.

A single shaft of sun-light was forming
retreating across the floor toward the window.

Standing in place
her hair fell softly around her shoulders;
she shook it loose
while stepping down out of her shoes
moving them aside.

They made a little rubble pile of things past
and the promise of things new.

She fingered her blouse.

Each pearl button snapped
releasing the cloth
and a v-shape formed at the top;
each snap deepening the mystery
that the emerging bra revealed.

Her thin hands flutter again
and solider-straight her blouse line
is now straight up and down;
her breathing motivating the motion
of her chest expanding and contracting.

Life to her
in that moment
was a driving engine, irresistible.

Her blouse left her finger-tips and floated
away
landing on the floor flower-petal style
arranging itself it seemed on the carpeting;
a soft white thing arrayed within a hieroglyph
of shoes, cocked hat, red coat and abandoned makeup kit-
and her satin-red pin-cushion.

Her bra snaps and falls away, down to the plush floor
rounded pyramids on the sandstone colored carpeting
joining the assemblage there;

hiding and revealing some Rosetta stone of meaning.

Bare-breasted she stood exhibiting nature's bare skin-
its givings and takings;
one nipple touched now in that gathering light,
one breath lifting it- seeming to accentuate
and simulate the rising of some nipple-dappled sun.

She stepped out of her panties trembling
for it was the last act she knew
would be the last act
before becoming fully naked;

all of her now revealed
a mixed cauldron of leaping
swirling emotions;
evaluations and assessments
condemnations and praises-
she was the bas-relief in her own hieroglyph;
her own collage of tossed aside clothing

He said 'You look so beautiful.'

She turned swiftly removing the last of it;
her Soul reaching
offering that to him too
on this their wedding eve
before their wedding night.