Mornington Crescent Nude, Contre-Jour

Walter Sickert, "Mornington Crescent Nude, Contre-Jour" (1907)

She reclines, half-silhouetted
against the bright North London morning.
Sheets, once crisp, now crumpled,
lie in submission at her feet
as the light plays peekaboo
over shoulder, arm and thigh.
She faces me,
offering her full, ripe breasts
as if in an invitation to
enter my own drawing.

But no. I remind myself
that to oversee a figure properly
I should be three times its length away,
and... say... five foot eight times three
is seventeen feet.
I must be seventeen feet
away from this woman,
bought for an hour or two
like a wanton of the streets
to be the centrepiece of
this dappled mosaic,
a canvas for the light that caresses her form.

A proper woman, at any rate,
no Pre-Raphaelite fantasy
tubercular wasted waif,
but one of curves and contours,
strength and beauty,
who knows her simmering sensuality
and is right now staring me in the eye,
as if she were in control of this sitting,
from a distance of seventeen feet.

Look at the light, look at the light,
then head down
and focus on the sketchbook;
remain three times her length away
for just a little longer.

- Wild Bill Balding