By Madeleine Higgins
The artiste, with a trembling hand,
Drowns pencil-shapes with paint,
Twitching at the loss of that rough-draft promise.
Once finished, she isn’t quite—
Is that cloud shaped to petty satisfaction?
Couldn’t that red be more yellow?
She trims and blots and razes until
A simmering sunset becomes an entirely different beast.
Just as a chicken goes from corpse
To table-topper under the blunt gutting of a butcher
On a chopping table. Once the head and legs are lost,
This expert begins to refine more deeply;
The once-living thing is carved elegantly and fragmented
Until it looks never-lived, unrecognizable,
Something that can be consumed safely.
And the painter returns again and again,
Scratching, honing, bleeding red suns—
And trying not to cut out the heart in the process.