Pull, 38"hx60"w, oil on canvas, 2009

“Poem Painting" series. These works were created in response to the sonnet sequence "Key Fallen to Blue" by Richard Robbins, from Other Americas published by Blueroad Press, copyright© 2010.

5.  The Pair in MacArthur Park

Blankness the oldest lover at her side.
Wrinkle and shit the man’s last new set of clothes.
That genius sunlight come to purify
both good and wicked on the lawn. What they know:

The moon’s pull never is a woman’s.
Better these animals hear them near the ground.
Smaller than the rocks grow the lives some men
have traded beauty for, that loud fountain

announcing their mistake. Afternoons
in the city, he will pass the couple
on their bench or quilt. He’ll hum his tune blue
as the afternoon, a string of ducks circling
the palms. Where one walkway ends, his building
drifting under lily pad, ripple.