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poetry


Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Blossoming off the wall, O�Keeffe�s black iris vulva
swept me through the door She
sated me with shadows, but I was greedy enough to
wander up the stairs where Calder
extended a wire life line that I
grasped and he
reeled me up to the glass ceiling to
swing with the red and blue steel leaves I
wanted to fly so badly that I
fell into the ocean, where a sumptuous black fish
awaited me,
rippling its steel body and
balancing with immaculate precision on air
Circling the ocean floor I tried to
swim with it, but Rothko
wrapped me in his ragged-edged sheets and
fed me bowls of oranges, chocolate and grapes I
danced for the fish, the iris, the leaves
wearing seven veils of oil on canvas to a siren song of color that
awoke the ballet dancers, who abandoned Degas and
donned Rothko�s torn canvases for costumes until Matisse
joined the dance and the Lady of Shallot
leaned out the tower window while a one-armed goddess
swam through Monet�s waterlilies and the art students
threw down their sketchbooks and
scaled the walls of the Egyptian temple and when we were tired we
shrunk like the Chinese porcelain beauty queens to
curl up on the petals of the iris and
dream of paintbrushes and solder.
Poetry
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Poem for Georgia O'Keefe

I have known women like you,
who found me hiding,
stared into my secrets but also away
into light, bones, shadow.

you saw snow in New Mexico
like torn pieces of clouds

and I have been tearing pieces of myself
so I can prove
how bravely stupid banner waving
I can be on any given day

I am called the girl who talks-
I talk when no one�s listening,
talk to an audience that doesn�t want to know,
talk to a world of people who don�t want to hear,

But I have seen my future in charcoal lines on white
maybe next I will be the woman who sees
and even pansies will appear
brilliant and large before me

Something explodes in the center
but the sky is dark, caressing
your wisdom at the edge of chaos


watching

You glance at me
I am writing poetry
scratching a scab
braiding my hair

Your eyes follow me
I am looking
for blackberries
imagining
thrift store dresses
watching
the sky for revisions

You stare at me
I am creating
a future
where I am as familiar
as grass,
light,
clover
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