Monday, January 4, 2010

Paint (Unfinished)

The one paintbrush I have
is old, with ragged fibers
and teethmarks from mouths long grown up
and gone away
sunk deep into its yellow handle.
When I see it,
I am reminded of that day
you picked it up and, laughing,
held it between your face and the light.
You let the watery yellow-orange
drip from its squared-off end
onto the clearness of your skin,
running down your cheek like a tear
from the source of all happiness,
and I thought you could have let it
stay there forever,
there where it gathered
with other tiny droplets
under the roundness of your chin.
But I guess it wasn't yours to keep,
because it fell from you,
burying itself and all its brightness.

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