Painting by Numbers

        Painting by Numbers

The largest parts are numbered with a plain

1, meaning I should use the color of

Your skin in parts without the darker stain

Of body hair—or nipples made for love.

Much darker areas are shown by 2,

Those parts where tufts of nearly blackness grow.

You know exactly where I mean.  A few

Parts need the number 3 because they show

A duskiness, a reddish duskiness

Like spots on breasts, and then a different dusk

Inviting me with hidden muskiness.

They mean an 8 is brushed in, like a tusk

That’s  found its mark and now is stained with lust

When we have both exclaimed with grunts and cussed.

Phillip Whidden