I've molded you, I confess.
Part of the touchy, feely years
was fit this piece into place,
add, subtract, round this square peg,
hollow out and fill with something finer.

All these years, you have
been living with a sculptor
who's chiseled in the bedroom,
smoothed at the supper table,
swept up the dust from under your nose.

Sure I'm a sheepish Rodin, a ground level
Michelangelo, who works best in your dark,
with blueprints from before he met you,
such a selfish artistic sensibility,
you've no say in the finished product.

Even now, I'm fitting you out for a slightly
different face, a sweeter disposition,
a longing as deft as a quick nudge to your marble ear,
a stone-chip freed from your mouth,
a sandpapering of your receptivity.

I've done a good job even if you don't know so.
The more you claim yourself as your own,
the more my handprints are all over you.
But then again, what's an artist
but what a work of art finds necessary.