CURATING CUBISM

Every day I wake

and look 

at the figure

in front of me.

And every day

it shape-shifts 

into some new

form

that has me 

think 

some new thought

about it. 

And with this 

altered thinking 

my soul grows heavy

or light 

depending upon 

how I am seeing

the thing I see 

that day.  It’s not 

easy going through life

with a kaleidoscope

in my mind.

Oh, how I wish 

I could take all this 

thinking 

that gets 

stretched

across hours,

days, weeks,

and months,

and put it down,

into a canvas, 

collapse it

into a cubist 

painting, 

strip it 

of time 

and space,

render it 

into 

one muted 

flattened moment,

that I would hang

like a mirror

on a gallery

wall. All that 

thinking, 

all in one place,

within one frame,

within one room,

what a relief 

that would be,

how free I’d be.

I could visit it,

the painting, 

the thinking,

whenever I wanted to

instead of

it visiting me

randomly, compulsively

all at a moment’s notice.

It would be

outside of me

as something 

I could witness

instead of being 

a thing inside me

like a cancer

I couldn’t cut or cure,

like a child I couldn’t

comfort or cradle.

With it outside me

I wouldn't 

feel so 

powerless over it.

I'd be the curator 

and in control 

once and 

for all.