Sketch Interruptus
This is a poem about art, love, laughter, and a hallway that never asked for any of this. It’s one of those nights when inspiration gets out of hand—literally—and the universe interrupts at exactly the wrong (or right) moment. It’s about sensual humor, and about the pleasure of looking, touching, teasing—and the unexpected moment when everything stops. A soft, erotic vignette from the female gaze.
Content Warning
Erotic content, nude boyfriend modeling, hallway misadventures, and one extremely inconvenient phone call.
Painting a Nude by Elani Babe
They call me Elani, the best painter of Nudes
but I needed my boyfriend to volunteer
(he’s my fan and poet too)
Actually, no problem
’cause we own the building
the floor was empty,
the elevators off,
the hallway wall my canvas
Beyond bedtime,
like a late party lasting into sunrise,
I would need to instruct the model:
Stand still, and rise erect for my
double entendre, dear poet fan
I’m the artist so
I took off his clothes
told him we’d go
into the hallway
Told him:
Hey naked guy
help me with
the equipment
He got a tarpaulin
(or was it a plastic sheet?)
because the hallway carpet
deserves its innocence.
I grabbed my paints and dared him:
Race you to the hallway —
loser does the dishes.
I knocked over my chair, laughing,
ran toward the door.
He lumbered after me, wrestling a tarp,
dropped it with a thud. I kissed him.
We unrolled a river of plastic
expecting a sunrise in the hallway.
On the wall,
I sketched a deer; then a tree.
He turned, and his back,
a double-helix ribbon of hair in the middle,
pulled me out of “artist mode.”
My hands remembered him
before the pencils did.
He faced forward
and I recognized
his hairy immodesty,
then told him to get
a bucket of water, and
watched his little behind
vanish back into the apartment
I planned my sketch.
He came back with a cute
mocking affront with the bucket.
His thick ribbon of hair
from his chest to his navel
was like a pointer
He had an attitude
but I had a comb
I combed his chest hair downward and onward —
his hair was soft, some blond, some brown, some grey
and I lined him up against the wall
I called my painting
“Flying Mushroom Fountain Between Two Trees”
I petted his chest with my hands
and when I rested my hand over his heart
it was beating so hard that
I thought my hand would be bruised
and when I asked what he thought about
my painting idea of truth,
he said like off singing
uh-ah-um-uh-oh
and did self CPR with heavy breathing
I told him to wait right there
and keep the pose potion
while in awe I went to get
some lotion and a notion
I returned with an attitude, and
he said umble-ah-oh-oooh-ahhh
and sometimes Y
practicing his vowels
I told him to stand tall and erect
so I could do a sketch.
When he faltered
I gave him a hand
and sketched with my other hand
It was a hard process.
He asked if the sketch was finished.
But I said oh pish posh, hmmm:
the shaft is thicker and wider than a mushroom,
and the tip has complex curves actually —
the back is hyperboloid with
a curled up base like a ski slope, and
I mused out loud: (Are we
going skiing this year?)
and he said ah-oh-oooh-ahhh
hmm, only a portion is
rounded spheroid
and then two lobes and a string
or something but it’s enough
for a sketch. Right?
and he said ah-oh-oooh-ahhh
It took a little self-discipline
to not take off my sin clothes, but
yeah I can be analytical about fuss
with an inner cry and craving lust;
Yeah, if I must muster art courage — ha!
I had finished the sketch
when on edge he said,
“So now you’re going to paint. Right?”
“Um, yeah right”
But he had said fretting,
“You don’t want to get
paint on your dress.”
I mixed up some flesh colors
thinking to do a dry
brush technique to
get color variations just right.
He was colorful y’know
“Y’know,” he said,” you don’t want to get paint on your dress.
and I’ve been standing here for a long time…a little help…”
I gave him a hand to see what color he could become
He said, “Hey-eeeee-iiiiiiiii-oh-you and Y”
I walked back a few steps
got my purse and bag
pursed my lips
dumped out tubes and a board
practiced my pucker, my pout,
squeezed a lot of white onto
the palette board, and
squeezed dabs of several reds,
two yellows, two blues and
then oops: I,the depainted one,
almost dipped my dress
into the said paint
I did a pout and a curtsy
and stripped off my dress.
He changed colors again.
gosh what’s an artist to do?
I carried the palette board in one hand, and
my purse and a fist full of brushes in the other.
I put them off to his side
where I had started the sketch
He said, “You don’t want to get paint on your bra, do you?”
I sat down in front of him, and
looked up at his endowment,
did the last strip tease for breasts and
I said, “Hmm, these flesh colors
are all different. Let me see
the palms of your hands. Hmm, no,
your thing isn’t like anything like that color;
even the tip is darker than that, and
the edge is an entirely different color.”
I reached up and
his knees bent and shook a little.
I ran my hands up his inner thighs. I said,
“How do I paint all these colors?”
He said, “Mmmm, uh, mmmm.”
“I want it to glisten in the sun
for the painting y’know,” I said
while walking to the side to stretch, and
getting my purse, looking at the sketch,
and mixing a little paint for an edge
He said, “How would I glisten in the sun
if there’s no sun right near and
what color in sunlight would I be?”
I came back in front. “Glisten?” I echoed.
“Well, I can add a little shine.”
I opened a tube of K-Y jelly
squeezed some onto his shaft,
let the tube drop to the floor, and spreading
the lotion with finger tips, I said
“I think this will help capture the light,
to give the painting the right touch.
Don’t you think so?”
“Mmmmm, uh, mmmm.”
I sat down on the floor
reached up and his knees bent and shook.
I unrolled a condom on him,
grabbed his hands, and
like rowing a boat, pulled him
down on me as
I lay back onto the floor.
He kissed me, thrusting like the artist he is.
I said, “aaaa eeeei iiiiiiiiiii oh you”
didn’t ask Y.
Heard a phone ring
with dire consequences
Portrait interruptus
Poet Laureate of the Primitive Planets 