Christopher Palmer: ‘Advice to a young life model’

Advice to a young life model

First, have a body that people want to draw. A paintable body.
That fits within a frame, this way. Or that.

Bring with you the innumerable and immeasurable
and hold them close. Renewal and revelation.
Hope’s soft cradle. The scent of a memory.

Next, let your body be a question mark and your skin
its own canvas. Provide no direct answers, but if you wish
you can point the way to the truth.

Know that you are many things: an animal entering hibernation;
a shape, fixed in its geometry; a dancer,
paused in the telling of the story.

Think of nothing that makes you smile. Ponder the simple
existence of diatoms, the cold of an ice age. If you need,
bite down on an argument and suck out its marrow.

Move within the stillness of an image. Listen with indifference
and do not give voice to your thoughts.
Shelter yourself from the rain falling all around.

Wear a gaze like the moon’s, open and empty.
Sometimes the more you look, the less you see.

Allow each to have a fragment, but leave the largest part
of yourself at home. In this way they will never know all of you.

Consider it a transaction, but only part with what
you’re willing to lose, and remember all those moments
you’d like to take back. You’re granting permission
just by being there.

Lastly, surrender to the act. You embody self-awareness
and self-acceptance. Anchored as a tree
you’ve begun to fly.

Christopher Palmer