Behind him he dragged his ill-fickle mind
On a tether
That distanced subjectivity and
Seclusion.
He glazed over portraits the way a newborn might look at a parent;
Rolling marble eyes across a wooden floor
That thud upon the friction of
"I know you, what is your meaning? Maybe I don't care."
He chipped off every stroke of pigment leaving flecks of red and yellow under his fingernails.
Holding it up to the light, he looked to see if translucency would bear a bible of translation.
Some would paint over the Mona Lisa if her ambiguous smile displeased them.
But he treated each crack as a symbol;
The morse code of artistry.