ekphrasis of caravaggio's boy with a basket of fruit

Lip Manegio

name my cheekbones     too soft
              for your mouth            & paint my clavicles
delicate              dipping valleys
                                     blush my cheeks           merlot
              flirt of a brushstroke    down my neck

                          & i will cradle
his warmth in the crooks
     of my arms   right next to the figs
                                                       bursting their red

i trust                in my slipping robes
     in my own unbloodied         shoulderblades left to rest
dappled in sunlight       in the peach,
                        slipping out of its own skin
in my skin,                   forever slipping into his reach

my doe eyes sightlining
                                     past the edge of this stretched gossamer
to the swoop of his chest

             they call me boy              & do not consider
my hair                curling behind my ears,
                                                                my name,
              or who             all this fruit was for