If she speaks his language,
sets his life to music,
and breathes within your verses,
What am I beside her?
If her breasts are
smaller than mine,
if I am sharper, prettier
and more than her
(in everything),
why do I feel smaller?
I can confess:
I never knew how to truly see you,
or to give worth to what you were.
If you kiss other canvases,
may the oil paint not erase me;
may not erase me the oil paint;
may you not kiss other paintings.
I deny being a frame,
I deny being an attic,
and I deny being dust
or a frame in forgotten garret.
I was wetness and brush,
I was crack on canvas,
and I was life
as it left me.
I am neither paint that’s past
nor ancient page;
neither forgetting of memories
nor memories of forgetting.
No.
I am scratch of story,
white cloth
and colored cotton.
And over itself, a story—
white:
seedbed of strokes,
of distant shadow
and pigment inscribed
on the back of a goodbye.