The two picture frames shifted with immediacy
From one room to the next. Eight lines
Of golden growth, eight cuts bleeding from end
To end, coiling into Baroque, or Victoriana, or
Whatever this ornate bulk is.
One I filled with a woman, grainy girl printed at a
Grocery store. She smiles in the vanishing
Nature of vintage, as if the bulb burst, branding
The moment with overexposure.
Homage to your heroin, breaking up the space.
The other hangs in waiting, housing only a pane
Of custard that coats the walls. A temporary
Filler, sketched hands, crude cup of coconut
Milk. White on white. Black on white. On
Custard,
Pocked with a million budding pimples, little
White dams. Corks that, if removed, could
Reduce the room to falling ripples. But the room
Holds firm. We've begun to give it new skin.
We've begun.
We.
I am surrounded by patterns of wood and
Yet I do not retch. I am cornered by this pale
Yellow and yet I love. My sacrificial ego, it is
Burning into you. And this, opening the
Doorless, tidying these boxes, is a horror, a
Miracle in itself.
