Rothko Soliloquy

The actor portraying Mark Rothko
in the local production of a play about the artist
is being given a private tour of the gallery
by the head curator of the museum.
Both men are pale, portly, and bald.
The curator pontificates
about brush strokes and layering;
in one scene, the actor and his assistant
(a convenient prop fabricated by the playwright)
paint a canvas solid red, but not before
discussing at great length the various permutations
and implications, and variations, both physical and metaphoric,
of that grisly color. The actor peers closely
at the paintings, backs up, strokes his chin.
The curator stands with his arms crossed,
his voice deep and authoritative.
The master instructing his pupil,
unlocking the artist's secrets:
There's a little bit of white in there.
He preferred dime-store brushes to expensive ones.
Notice the scumbling around the edges.
...as the apprentice murmurs I see and interesting.
Once onstage, he will bellow and bark lines
from a script that reads like an undergrad dissertation, 
salted with every imaginable cliche
of the volatile, egotistic stereotype of the Artist.
Nietzsche's name will be spat across the stage,
the words Dionysian and Apollonian will be hurled about 
to reassure the audience that they are witnessing a work
of great seriousness, that they have come to this theater
not to be entertained but to be inspired, 
lifted into the heights of intellectual nirvana.

When the two substantial gentlemen have strutted off,
each going his separate way, I secure the gallery doors
and flip the breakers to shut off the lights.
And there they hang, those luminous creatures,
those butchered slabs of beef,
their crimson hides turned to bruises in the dark,
longing perhaps to share their sublime grace,
but nevertheless treasuring the silence.

Mugshots

A shingle, glittering gray
and rough as sandpaper,

peeled from the roof
by the wind and slapped

at the feet of a chalk outline
of a child's shadow 

traced on the pavement
beside a black Tbird 

with its hood propped,
engine ticking in the sun.

The Pride of the Wolverines

        After the parade, the street is littered with porcupine quills scattered like pick-up sticks across the asphalt. City workers pull on thick gloves to remove the splintery sawhorses that block the traffic. The crowd has dispersed rather suddenly A small child squats amongst the popped ballonskins and silly string, spelling out his name in quills. He tugs at his mother's hand but she is busy texting a message to her sister. That's nice, Honey, she says, never taking her eyes off the little screen. The plod of an exhumed Sousa march still echoes lethargically between the buildings as the last band staggers around the corner and collapses. 
     Thirty years pass. The porcupines have conquered the nation. In the basement of an abandoned Woolworth's on the outskirts of Detroit, the son stretches his arm through the bars and gently bumps the stump of his wrist against his mother's. He nudges his bowl of pine needle soup toward her, urging her to eat. The swill is congealed and cold, but still it's sustenance, and they take turns bending low and slurping from the bowl without a word.

Cleave

An early spring storm brought down 
one of the big elms on the corner. 
A woman was trapped beneath it briefly, 
cradled between its branches but
swiftly rescued without a scratch. 
The upper limbs of the tree, not yet budding, 
came to rest against the old stone church 
across the street, shattering one 
of the stained glass windows. 
A single squirrel darted up and down 
the trunk for a while 
before finally disappearing 
through the narrow aperture 
into the building. 
I stood there thinking about you 

as city workers set flares in the road 
and strung up a web of yellow caution tape. 
Rainwater filled the hole where the roots had been. 
Soon the chainsaws would start up, 
followed by the grind and munch 
of the woodchipper reducing 
the toppled giant to sawdust 
as inside the church, a small furry creature 
darted beneath the pews, its tiny heart 
pounding wildly in the dark.