There's an awkward thrill I feel
like wicked-wet rabies –
Oh. Ah. Oh.
To gaze over photos of the woman I created.
With my warped perception,
saturating and cropping everything into delicious
oblivion.
I am the knife as well as the ingredients
that sauteed her together in a camera flash.
She sits hot like heaven.
And I want to
stare at her picture all day until she comes to life.

The woman I created, I hang up like perfected rotisserie
and fall in love with her accidentally every day.
Looking into those precisely underlined
tiger-*** eyes of startling navy. Knowing their true dullness.
Hissing at the free-swinging curls
and the hours behind them. Loving the lie.
The flowy top and sleek trousers gliding down lovely as Niagara
over chaffing chub; all hidden. And thighs; unshaven.
And that topical smile everyone likes to see, waiting to plummet
into suicide like a kite hanging in one tight second.
Her image is my greatest
False accomplishment.

I hang my portrait up on a wall of the internet
for people of the world to migrate to
the photo exhibit, my little show-off room.
They make offers and toss compliments
with their “I like this. I like this." nonsense.


They don't know that the girl in the portrait, she
isn't organic. They seem not to notice
that she is something of a chemical flower.
Her face is my face, only with whiteout poison-paste
smoothed over twice.
And they want to
stare at her picture all day until she comes to life.

Gazing upon her believed-to-be beauty, as I hang my paintbrush,
she bites her body still as a painting,
bruised and needled
into perfect frame. She cries
like Jesus Christ, as she is stared at, but not seen.
I am the artist as well as the object.
And the woman in the portrait is
nothing,
but dot after dot of manipulated color.
And we want to
stare at her picture all day until she comes to life.