It’s as if you’re dead and looking at life through a veil, someone said to me at my recent solo show of my work.

Not a bad analysis — because I don’t paint from life. 

My companions in my studio are fluctuating moods and passing thoughts and squelched memories bubbling to the surface. 

I paint because I like being off-balance. 

Teacher 

Leave your sleepy rivulets to trickle down my wrist,

Teacher. Put up a mirror for an answer

so I can ask the same question

twice

            Seal shut last year’s envelopes, your lesson’s feral cabinet,

            Say, The mirror is facing the wall, your secrets are safe

            Don’t ask me,

            “Dear little cobweb: why so brooding, mysterious, and  quaking?”

            Don’t say, “I’ll seize this and this and this”

Leave everything alone as is

            like the mirror, when nobody’s looking