Exhibits
Mid-way through our stroll in Albertina,
I am overcome.
I want to know, nah, solve her..
just like Alex tries when he
draws her.. over & over.
She is like the moisture
that slips out just as
color dries on the sheets.
Are those her notations
or her footprints on the
margins of his linoleum?
She must have other chores.
(When she is not his model, she runs
past windows and stops rarely
for a side-glance.. in my head.)
I imagine one afternoon
when he outlined
her face on paper
as a monody
to estrangement,
his flat-brush flirting
with her tuning-fork
as he filtered flat lines
of her turbid face.
Or does he sketch from/ of memory;
Worse! Does he have to look away
from his favorite subject to paint?
I wonder if he practices portraits
of people in the subway
only to return to Ada,
like a warlock rehearsing a new
sleight on the streets for free.
Or is she his home-work,
so the world may seep
into his canvas
better?
(So many people drop
pennies on the street,
we keep stepping on luck.)
Or.. is he
turning himself inside out
like we do an old hand-bag
looking for a favorite, lost, pen -
for he can paint rain in motion,
make each transient falling drop
of water freeze to life
and it makes me mad
that he gives her sunglasses
sometimes
because her eyes are where I see him.
(Before shaking out the insides of that bag,
our fingers forage through forgotten felt
while the grousing pen hides in a crevice.)
I have run out of exhibits
and I still have no proof
that love is repetition
- summer after summer
you & I
will spend afternoons
in museums
keeping ourselves
at hand -
its provenance is our every day.