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.