JACKSON POLLOCK PAINTS A SELF-PORTRAIT
If the brushstroke embodies representation,
let this drop of paint be the thin membrane
between being and seeing. Let the exact gray
of my eyes become nothing more than gauze
through which I see the canvas, darkly. She
said show me the exact yellow of light,
and I said, I don’t paint that shit. I said
every canvas is a self-portrait, every
drop of paint is a whiff of the world
that can’t be unmade. I am painting
the world in my image, one giant white
mistake at a time. I said, stand back.
I said, Look at this.
ABOUT THE POET
Lynn Kilpatrick's poems have appeared in Western Humanities Review,
McSweeney’s, Tin House, and Denver Quarterly. Her collection of short
stories In
the House was published by FC2. Her fiction has appeared in
Ploughshares, essays in
Zone 3 and Brevity. She earned her PhD from the
University of Utah and teaches at
Salt Lake Community College.
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