Pale scrapings of people with lipstick ringed glasses and cigarettes burning, and laughter trickling up and down their knotty throats. What is this, a gathering of henhouse critics?
My father's voice in the back of my head, saying, forget that I'm dead and if you can not do that than pretend.
I am standing just outside the gallery beneath the shadowy bough of a birch. The moon is floating in the sky's dark lap. Faraway I can hear the ocean sigh.
Now father, I am asking, what smile are you wearing? What color are your eyes again? How many teeth have you lost?
Don't you think I want a kiss. Perhaps I don't. Perhaps I don't want to stand and pretend you not dead while the wet, champagne mouths of the living tell me how wonderful your paintings are.
As they crook their fingers and strain their necks, lose their vocabulary inside the artwork's depths and colors.
Father, I want your reputation to outlive the pursuits of others with their iron-on reviews after an hour's worth of browsing at a lifetime of your work.
