Comfortably Numb

I was a fresh tube of paint, Indian Yellow,
in wait to experience the slick skin  
of a gesso'd canvas—or paper'd  
Poetry put to pictures, a visual gift  
After hand-to-hand combat  
With the muse. I had never known  
A scent of turpentine permeating  
The space of an atelier,  
Unlike my friend, whose name  
Was that of a man's, Michael,  
Yet, she was feminine as they come.  
Michael, who had fallen obsessively  
Within the composition of one  
Who would unwittingly become  
My greatest mentor. Me, starry-eyed  
And ignorant of the power of words  
To loosen the cap of Love  
in the wrong lifetime.  
 
I felt the squeeze, an inchworm  
Of syllables clawing for their debut  
Against raw cartilage of my throat.  
Cadmium tints bled a foreign landscape  
from a genome of southern memory.  
A provence'd affair of likeminded artists  
Gathered 'round the café table  
Not far from the remains of Chagall.  
But, my tongue curled into an Autumn leaf—  
Cracked and dry, void of utterance.  
I drank the wine instead, tattooing  
My lips a plum'd vino of crushed grape  
And speckled glass dream.  
 
Sixteen plus years after death  
I come face-to-face with my own image  
Staring out from the Universe. . .  
I was a catalogued nebulae of sienna blue  
Surrounded by a super nova of burnt orange,  
Neon green, and powdered pink entwined  
Within space. The low price of $120.00  
American dollars adjacent to its cardboard spine.  
I added it to my cart without thinking twice,  
Or notifying your archived estate  
I was she, the ghost-girl of portrait's past. . .  
 
Suddenly I remembered everything—  
'The Shelter from the Storm' gang  
Rampant upon Saint Paul de Vence  
Living youth as an arranged Charcuterie tray  
Of the finest cuts of moment.  
Wheatfield's and Van Gogh in one stroke  
Of mental illness, a madness that infiltrates  
Bloodletting among artists, changing  
The dynamics of their insanity.  
 
I glanced at the wall where your painting  
Hangs over the headboard of my bed.  
How sad I looked back then—  
How comfortably numb, impervious to truth;  
How happy it would be to have another  
Image to distract family and friends  
From the longing of such large, doleful eyes  
That command their attention, even after so many years.  
 
I leave them alone to ponder every time—  
They've given up asking what was on my mind.    
They'll remain as unaware as the generation to come;  
As unaware as we were of when, exactly. . .  
Michael had left the room.  
~