September 1-7, 2014: Denise R. Weuve and Richard Widerkehr

In a Museum

When losing your lover
between surrealist and impressionist
you begin searching for him
in the pastel dabs of the French,
angry primary stokes of the Germans,
flowing romantic layering of the Italians,
knowing he is with none of them.
More likely to be found
in the volumetry Botero figures
gazing in a myriad of color
and life
or
with cubist
studying the angular lines
of Braque dividing his violins from candlesticks
than the pop art of an American
with bubblegum colors
and plastic shine.
If he is fortunate
he will have been trapped
by an art maven, who took
both Art 101 and Art History.
She’ll explain that the lack of frame
In Torres’s piece was intentional,
meant not to draw away
from the amber
and chocolate edges
saturating the canvas
to express the copper orb looking towards
a world that conserves the natural wealth
of the environment,
while you stand lost in the indigo night
mesmerized by Vallejo’s
Dream Freefall
never knowing why.

Pulling the Stopper

What my doctor didn’t tell me was the day after surgery, when the opiates were starting to wear off, some other man in a white coat would waltz into my hospital room at six a.m., turn on the fluorescent lights, and ask, “How are we doing?” With a confident smile, he warned me, “This is gonna hurt, but it’s got to happen.”With one pull, lickety-split, like a weight lifter doing a clean jerk, he plucked a bulb out of my side, as if ripping a blood-soaked stopper from a tub. Apparently, a bladder or balloon had been inserted in the left side of my abdomen to soak up blood. Yesterday, I’d been swimming under anesthesia, and I felt joy when I woke and saw Linda’s face. Now, so I could see what happened, a stranger tore some second heart out of my side, just to show me my first one could go on beating.