The subject of a painting
whether oil or watercolor or tempera
does not know she is in a painting.

She knows her past, whatever of it
her artist gave her when he brought her to life,
though (unbeknownst to her) she did not experience
any of it herself.

She was conceived a fully-grown woman,
so when the painting is one of hurt,
the subject sits in it from first brushstroke into infancy
(or until the work is burned in a **** fire--
though who knows if flames can destroy
consciousness given to an idea as
ephemeral as a painted girl?)

So forever she will lie in her sick bed,
languor in her grief,
swoon from the heat of the sun,
or cry at a grave site under the cover of darkness,
stand beside her husband stoically surveying her fields,
or weep at the feet of her son
as he dies nailed upon a tree, or
cry in pain as her womb expels an unborn babe.

But I-- one day I wake in another bed
or the same bed, on a different day
My injury, my pain that felt interminable,
is gone (or at least, eased) and I have
no gaps in my teeth.
I have left the painting
I have less pain,
a new life. A new day.

For me, the wheel keeps turning, for
I am not
the subject of a painting.
So, this too
I know, shall pass.
And for me the sun will rise again tomorrow.