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Black and White


In weeds behind Grandma’s roses

I discover a scrambled drawing,

a tangle of lines too distraught

to have been scribbled by a child.

The paper’s crisp as a dollar.

The scumble of fine black lines

drawn in the densest India ink

.

suggests the windswept hairdo

of a favorite movie star.

As I formulate that metaphor

the paper rustles in my grip

and the lines rearrange themselves

slightly, almost making a shape.

I try to discipline the mind

.

with tenets of freemasonry,

the Cartesian paradox,

the Aquinas proof that God

remembers all our birthdays.

Laid flat and smooth on my desk

the drawing heaves like a fever.

Tiny feet, a child’s patent shoes,

.

and slowly the hourglass

of a flimsy cotton dress dyed

cornflower blue. No color,

of course, only the outline

of a definite cornflower blue.

The child lacks arms and a head

so I leave, closing the blinds,

.

and let the geometry ripen

in the dim afternoon. At dusk

a storm crawls across the hills,

groaning and weeping, an effort

I respect. The drawing, I find,

has almost completed itself.

It smiles. I touch it. Lightning

.

sneers at the window. A hiss

of electrons passes from me

to the child and she rises

full-sized from the tiny page

and embraces me so thoroughly

the simple black-and-white of me

explodes the illusion of flesh.

~

words: William Doreski, New Hampshire (blog)
image: Molly Sutton Kiefer, Minnesota (blog & photos)

 

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