Autorretrato Quintina

A mind needs a place to set its teeth, and grace
arrives in fixing the toilet, in water
smoothing the pre-dawn fears of possible
cysts, faulty seatbelts, the radio loop
of reasons I'm needed and belong nowhere.

Here is a mirror without Las Meninas, and nowhere
does light soften brow and wrist to the grays
blessed by Velázquez. Here is a needle's loop
for a mouth. Here is a sheet of water
rising behind the iris, here, the possible

a mottled gold. My skin is a plausible
way of counting miles, the tender nowhere
route of veins, tongue floating in water
carried since birth. My hands have the grace
to wield a wrench, to pull a chain loop

free from its knots and sketch the oval loop
a portrait might make if the impossible
appeared: a king's room brushed with grace,
sun fixed to lace and a leisure nowhere
near the bathroom echo of iron and water.

In this lull between doing and dreaming, water
owns shadow and animal rust, water loops
music around the heads of all who are nowhere
in the path of sleep. Draw closer. It is possible
to love the trouble in this face, to surrender.




Originally published in Poets and Artists. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the author.