Let Me Explain This Painting
By Jennifer Nelson
given a garden I marched to your face
while belted into a maiden
form so fertile
I might have exploded
for want of immediate sin
so I aimed
my head with its explosive
mouth at your face
till it sprang veins and turned
unstill and explained
you: and I felt the remove
of your explanation
as this painting
set in a twilight of surprisingly stable
cobalt blue for its age a gentle
allegory with incest
and as we approach the central encounter
of mother and child
we may blame
the cracks not on age but on perhaps
the ruddier underpainting of his face
perhaps done wet-in-wet
to model his hale cheek
for her paler face has fewer
marks of uneven drying
but
her mouth is split
with teeth and tongue
and his mouth’s ready but I think
they aren’t kissing yet I think
he’s reading her aloud
Jennifer Nelson is in the atelier.
Published On: February 14, 2011
Permanent Location: http://www.forgetmagazine.com/110214d.htm
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