Cyanotype as Myth

The sheet shows nothing but your outline, traced
Along one drift of hip in Prussian blue.
Your silhouette is blank, in no way true
To anything but shape—the way you placed
Your breast curved to the paper, turned your waist
To draw this line, a sinuous tattoo
Of pure abstraction. Beauty's always new
In Aphrodite's eyes, just not this chaste.

So now, my Galatea, rise unbound
From this flat, photographic surface. Be
a Woman and not Art, with Love be crowned!

Pygmalion thus to the picture talked.
The miracle, though, wasn't meant to be:
This blueprint wasn't birthed, but simply stalked.