Photo by Art Institute of Chicago on UnsplashTHE ARTIST & THE SCHOLAR
I’ve studied it from both the inside
& the outside, nearly but never actually
touching the borders of the great thing itself.
I’ve seen other worlds in me, alternate histories
in which the marriage has already ended.
There’s a small wife on that inner planet,
a hollow figurine that grieves & grieves,
pulling the roots up in the garden
of her life to see the extent of the rot.
Also in me is that tide of optimism
which, when it comes, pulled by the gravity
of our greater days, washes everything clean,
our love becoming perfect again,
a tabula rasa that awaits our staining.
The middle ground is unbearable,
a Schrödinger’s pastoral where
the landscape flickers in & out of God’s light,
indeterminate so that both the light
& the dark become meaningless.
I’m always leaving that place,
finding myself each morning
in the center of it, no matter how far
I traveled the day before. Broad strokes
of uncertainty; my face, my body.
The artist keeps painting me in.
