A friend asks what goes into these portraits.
He might want one done, but he isn't sure
he wants me to stare at him
All fuckin' day.
Psht. Let me put you at ease, Almond Joy.
I don't need you still to write lines in your likeness.
I consider the colors and textures of voices.
How smoothly a word like 'beluga' might sail
when run over faster than the posted
limit.
How scantily 'lemon' and 'steamy' might dress
knowing 'sheet cake' and 'sauna' might come to the party.
How some people's tongues act like brat only-children.
How others have lips who treat round sounds like heirlooms,
steady, and with Stanley Cup
white glove
care.
And then there are other things - small mannerisms.
Some people flex their temples when they're anxious.
Some flex them so hard, I imagine they were born
with the aid of kitchenware - kidney bean rubber
tongs.
Some people swallow like every decision
resembles a red and blue
wire.
Some people hold pencils like surgical tools.
Some people run fingers
through hair as a means of
softbooting
whatever they're
Trying
to say.
And eyes! Everyone has their own silent movie
playing in puddles
or mud baths or
ivy.
There's a lot to consider, but it doesn't take long
to gather enough
to sketch out
someone's
likeness.
Oh, he says. That sounds really involved.
And I feel like he hasn't been listening
at all.
I'd like to write your portrait.
More specifically, I'd like to take note of the shape
your hands make when holding
a fresh cup of coffee.
If your palm cups the mug like a mother with child.
If you prefer to keep grip with floaty fingertips,
letting the palm stick its head out the window.
If your middle and thumb curtsy around the rim,
appearing, then, like a hot air balloon.
I could guess, but I would be wrong.
You might not like
coffee
at all.
But I'd like to write your portrait, still.
(pardon that bit of
redundance)
This young man makes me curious.
He speaks in arial narrow, at times,
condensing,
tilts into illusory
barcode, the whole
of his language like something
one needs
to be flush with
before one can pull away
slow
revealing the sailboat
of whatever topic.
His eyes are a crow's nest.
Curiosity hopes
to make home inside morning
sea
smoke.
He sits.
The morning sun is a black booted officer
proficient in edged weapon tactics.
It slashes the inch between curtain and curtain,
creates marks on his body that resemble Kanji.
Oh, silk scroll of the flesh, how it fades in
the unwanted touch of
sunlight.
His heart is a steady knee bounce of confusion.
His heart - that formerly ripe watermelon
now rations where his blood should
flow.
To the brain to keep him safe from harm.
To the legs to keep him safe from harm.
A postmenopausal silence surrounds him.
He knows he will leave soon.
But when?
Man -
approximately 25 years of age.
There is a crumpled quality to his writing style,
or rather, a sort of paper plane precision
that finds me adoring air traffic control
as they sail like fat june bugs
my way.
They crash in open fields of yellow wheat and
hunted ducks.
I imagine his mind is an architect
with an unlit stick flirting with his lips
and a knack for building structures life
loves knocking to the
ground.
All but one, that is, and I
share in this magnum
opus.
He understands the love and this,
I hope, looks like
an orange
baton.
Boy -
approximately 5 years of age.
Movements mimic a stenographer
who has not slept -
*who will not sleep
until the script is finished or his bottle runs
dry.
He is sharp but haphazard.
A circle saw without the guard.
He is the spring behind my bathroom door
flexing away from our new puppy's teeth,
but he is also the puppy
and he is also the door
and all around, the sounds of frustration and joy
remind me that, exactly once,
I did something
right.
Man -
approximately 40 years of age.
He is firm and unmistakable,
a pop from dad's black leather belt
cutting through the garage door
on the fourth of
July.
He is wooden in stature.
A door all-too-happy to shut
himself in the face of
new love and
cruel strangers.
His voice is a handful of smooth skipping stones
kept warm by the memory of kind hearts
no longer with us.
I imagine he is a rooftop with a view not many share in.
I am honored when he lends his
hand.
Man -
approximately 45 years of age.
His hands tell a more interesting story than his face;
I don't mean to say that he's got learner's features
but his eyes have the same underline children's books
have to make sure you know what's
important.
His hands are a dog who doesn't know how to bite
in the context of playing just yet.
Or his hands are balloons that only know two shapes.
I imagine holding his pbbtthhhppp'ed thumb
and pretending to rev the motorcycle
every guy seems to buy at that
age.
His voice is a strip of tree bark mashed
into dark yellow folds of sweet taffy.
His body is a bird perched atop railroad crossings.
There are many who swear there is no train.
Woman -
approximately 60 years of age,
her face reminds me of peanut butter
dolloped like candle wax with thumb
prints where a brass seal should
be.
She is top heavy in her newfound beliefs.
Her voice is thick like crude oil n'sometimes just as dark.
There is a popsicle stick quality to her posture.
She laughs the way thumbs hail for cabs.
Man -
approximately 25 years of age,
has a face like the tear in the eye of a sad penguin.
He is soft in the way a new mattress is soft
which is to say quite firm, but one
rarely mentions that prior to
purchase.
His voice is also thick, but thick like
the sugar milk
at the bottom of a bowl of
corn flakes.
I like his eyes when he smiles.
They feel like hot water and 5am showers.
His laughter is a drone nobody else knows how
to use.