Warwick
Ben Johnson cover
I plagiarize you.
but my sounds will not be made yours -
a tourniquet fashioned in bland imitation,
no more.
you wear your fastidiousness lightly,
and by turns play the villain,
or the heroine,
or the cinnamon scented serpent winding.
the way paper turns yellow with age.
and I am defined to distraction,
piecemealed off in packages to please every palate:
my face in the mirror is all on split levels,
but y=y tells me nothing.
I would rather be sand-touched and crinkly
than smooth wavelengthed blue,
but - and again - in my striving
I would less be me
than you.
Veronica Susan
Zito
Where's the Soap?
Erin Owen
Vermeer Meditating on His
Girl With a Pearl
Earring
when did she twist away, fully conscious
from yellow oil gliding onto canvas--
last brush touch on the liquid of her eyes
and she blazed into herself
I do not know the color of her hair
and yet she is more real to me than the grey
wife or daughters I have never painted
light layering, orbiting that central grain
of ache, coalescing into timelessness
the pearl
forever other, dwelling two-dimensional in Delft
I am flat,
yearning towards her space
wondering at the longing on her face
the word unspoken hanging from her lips
I painted her--and yet I do not know
what she was going to say ...
I did not know I was building a bridge
with my brush and palette knife
until I saw it burning in her eyes
Joy K. Hoffman
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