When I Uncovered Your Body

When I uncovered your body
I thought shadows fell deceptively
Urging memories of perfect rhyme
I thought I could bestow beauty
Like a benediction and that
Your half dark flesh
Would answer to the prayer
I thought I understood your face
Because I had seen it painted twice
Or a hundred times, or kissed it
When it was carved in stone
With only a breath, a vague turning
You uncovered shadows
More deftly than I had flesh
And the real and violent
Proportions of your body
Made obsolete old treaties of excellence
Measures and poems
And clamoured with a single
Challenge of personal beauty
Which cannot be interpreted or praised:
It must be met