A MAN ASKED ME WHY I LIKE THAT PAINTING
BY WALT KUHN
Quick
to hear trifling
sounds, he keeps occupied
during the twilight hours,
reflecting on how the lightning bug stays lit,
like the moon, which even when halved
still glows, still does what it must
and he thinks he too can endure,
do whatever it was he used to do
before his wife rose from the table
to pack most of her things,
prompting him
to think about the summer he was eight,
when his mother left in the night
and he put lightning bugs in a jar
to make a lantern to look for her
because there was no moon
and the moon renews so slowly.
index
of poems
HOW
I BECOME AN ARTIST
Staring at a sheet of
French watercolor paper
(cream-white with deckled edges),
holding a piece of charcoal,
I draw a blank
but try to shed constraint
(my bossy partner) and slowly,
unsure in my isolation,
touch charcoal to whiteness,
soot it in an ephemeral sweep
and when I do, the paper's marked,
no longer pure--
I find I like it better
and continue until there are five marks.
When I connect them
they remind me of the black dog
I loved as a child. I go on
to see if there is something
I don't remember about the fur
on my dog's hind legs,
or the lick of his snout
or the barreling truck's blunder
PARTING
I.
my husband's scissors
lie on the desk next to his tense hand
their blades open duck bills with no squawk
ready
for the nick
ready for the slice
that will cause the split that will cut in two
what now is one imperfect
as we are
I really do envision us as one
but the first thin cut will certainly end
the probability
the possibility
of oneness and we know it won't stop there
soon after the blades taste that first cut
those ravenous jaws will want even more
then what is one or two becomes three and
four with each fine snip
those shears will shred our
history and we'll restlessly drift
till the exacting shears pause to rest
or nest in the wild hands of another
whose need is to part
II.
look at my scissors
a mere pin
clasps the two halves
pressing them into
an inseparable pair
they are deft
indivisible stems of steel
sharper than my husband's
the vacant black O's
through which I slip
my fingers
pry the delicate V
to an X
expose
the stainless beveled lips
whose yawning and gnawing
halve and slit
when hastily
snapped
the glint of their biased edges
nearly blinding
A
LIKENESS
The sisters huddle,
their shoulders bowed like hillocks in a brume,
and pass the photograph.
They agree it's a likeness, a likeness
blurred by glare and shadows.
It's a representation, a portrayal
they will live with now;
this bleached black and white photo
of their mother, from 1952.
After the funeral her three daughters pour
over it. She appears composed.
There is no sign she is losing her mind.
Only the first daughter remembers her mother
like this; fine-boned with a bookish air.
This daughter has become a doctor,
a specialist in this sort of thing. She stares
at her fresh-faced, mother, who even before
her miseries, stands at the very edge of the photo,
like a visitor with her own family.
The second daughter finds it curious
to see her mother stylishly dressed, almost
smiling. She thinks, here we all are, well groomed,
roosting on chairs as if this was our life,
as if the pillows too would always be plump,
the cafe curtains flowing, welcoming in the right
amount of light, the candy dishes generous
with sesame squares and chocolates. My mother
should never have had children, she thinks.
But the third daughter, who her wore one blue
dress, ate her one hot meal at school,
doesn't even recognize the prim woman at the edge
of the photo. My mother, she thinks, was a reedy
body in a rumpled bed, a torso hunched
at the kitchen table, caged
in swirls of cigarette smoke, always breathing
as if relenting. That relentless sighing
darkened our house like an immovable tree.
A tree should bear fruit,
offer tender breezes, protect those clustered below,
pressing against its trunk.
A
MAN ASKED ME WHY I LIKE THAT PAINTING BY WALT KUHN
I was put on the spot, obliged to give an answer
that would credit me and the painting. I told him I adored
the unabashed color;
the carnival reds, greens and yellows. I spoke about the subject,
the circus artist, the loneliness of her unceremonial form,
her torso forlorn
in the heart of the canvas, looking out at me so familiarly,
it's as if she knows me. I don't mean casually, I mean as if
she really knows me.
Even with her red pout, damp kohl eyes, rouged cheeks
and feathered hat, she looks humble and shy. Imagine that!
I'd be as brazen as the colors
decked out in plumes. Or maybe not. What would I do, if each
night I had to perform, an eternal accomplice under a spotlight,
and my sadness was imperishable?