for Becci

.

If I had painted myself today

I would have been thinking

of our conversation and how

.

you seem to be in two places

at once while I — take chase

in hopes of getting sympathy

.

for an aged cheese, long sitting

on the shelf in wait of a gourmet

taster, just like you, someone

.

who’s not deterred in the least by

stinky concoctions, can see them for

what they are — real, incased, beauty

.

in a tough rind, the skin of this

body politic, the only one evident

to me at this time. “I don’t think

.

you understand,” I say to myself after

the conversation has gone on to other

doings. I’m so tempted to say, “What good

.

will it do?” But I don’t. Instead I look

for anything that could serve as pigment,

binder, carriers, brushes –preparing.

.

As I paint myself today, the body which

is not me, returns into its elemental

unfolding falling back towards the

.

natural order of its emanation: water

to water; seed to seed; fold unto fold;

mineral saturations and truth and grit.

.

“What/where is that other place you exist?”

.