[taking away taking away everything]

Once I said I looked at paintings
and had ideas could concentrate
Matisse was not an important painter

to me now less so everything less so
everything important this was
the last show I saw before

What I like I used to say is process
when there were still things
I liked           she is (I am not

exaggerating) bone fragments and ash
& still many countries away Unless
you see with your own eyes they say

Get on a plane they say
You won't believe they say
How do you know someone asks

when a poem is finished? I have
nothing else to say it is not
easy no other subject every

day a version of today today is
day 29 I heard the flatline
over the phone                This is

the end I thought but it was already
over Dr. Lin said         Do I have your
machine heart in the rain against

the upper west side where it is
always night for one day makes it
difficult to paint the rain

                                         consent?
he said inside this terrible painting
the world goes on without any

open windows                  in "The Dream"
Matisse takes away the plants
an urn or vase what looks

like wings in an effort to
condense the body into essential
lines you have taken everything

away           I am still alive says
the painting that was never alive
Matisse said the woman becomes

an angel in violet I do not believe
in this view I am a bowl
of apples in this view I am

Notre Dame in the rain am
an interior am the drapes
pulled open pulled tight I am

the tablecloth that looks like
my grandfather's tallis I am
the white of the cloth that looked like

my grandfather's tallis I am pressed
flat made shapely magnolia anemone
yellow blue interior red with Egyptian

curtain fern interior interior
interior the incidental woman
now color shape no face at all





From The Pedestrians (Wave, 2014). Reprinted with the permission of the author.