Nude Study of a Black Woman, circa 1850

J. Paul Getty Museum, Artist Unknown

to you, I am worth less then
the camera you shot me with
the money you make selling
this daguerreotype to other
white men who hide me
from their wives in leather trunks
fraught with the smoke of cigars
who knew that a hundred years
later america would break its bank
for me, fiending
for an image that contracts upon
view. after this pose, where
I recline on your wife’s finest
silk chaise, and urge my fingers
into the very quick of me
I will hurry on my rough cotton
and go down to the kitchen
leave my hands unwashed
to bake your honeyed biscuits
rounded in the heart of my palm
and serve them before you
my good master, my iron
and labor weeping from your
pores. d’you smell me sir?
my pleasure? my ache?
tell me again who you
think I am