The Maynard
Spring 2015

0:00

 

 

A Conversation Between Image-Makers

What you write is only self-reflection,          my painter-sister says
with a slanted smile,                   all art is self-portrait.

She snags my shield with an uncanny knack:
—am I                   another unveiled painting hanging on the wall
isn’t she there too—

                   Don’t we choose our interpretation? I say.

I inhale atoms from her breath          exhale some of my own.
                      Mine, hers,                inaccurate possessives.

We transmit anonymous molecules
from fighters                         sparring
from saints          some love,                     to each other.

The air grazes our vulnerability.

She lifts her chin           dams the wet shimmer behind her lower eyelids.
Children,     she says,          disappear                      an iota at a time
that’s why

                                       I painted my girl walking away.