Chiaroscuro - Paula Cole

Goya and El Greco, Gaugin and Van Gogh

Painted light in the darkness, chiaroscuro

Imagine we were a painting

A woman and a man,

Two lovers on a canvas

On is white, one is black.

Darkness and light will be married tonight in chiaroscuro

Your body on mine — two colors combined in chiaroscuro

Vermeer and Velazquez, Rembrandt and Rousseau

Painted perfect union, chiaroscuro

The man and the woman

The knife and the spoon

The xylem and the phloem

The sun and the moon

How we lived a secret life from racist eyes

You said I couldn’t understand you anyway I tried

But in this moment together, in our secret unity

Our skins become the still life, our souls epiphany