The elevator opened on the 46th floor, to a small foyer and one plain, grey door

The door opened and a young girl, 10ish, in a blue, polo, tennis dress, said, “Hi! I’m Karen, you must be Anais. Will is around here somewhere. Aren’t you pretty, though? You go to school with Lisa? No wonder Will likes you.”

She skippingly ushered me from a bright, windowed, off-white, staircase entryway, into a deep-red, mahogany paneled library. A persian cat was soon underfoot, purring and winding around my legs.”That’s Misha,” Karen said, “just shoo her away if you don’t like cats.”

I stooped down to pet Misha who eagerly offered herself to be petted and admired. As I stroked her charcoal fur, Karen said, “Let me get Will,” as she scampered off.

A gold framed, impressionistic painting, pin-lit in bright crystalline light, hung over a fireplace. In the painting, two girls, in summer hats bright with startling red bows and yellow flowers, were sharing a book. The colors were rich, deep and swirling - it looked very much like a Renoir (I know my French artists). He’d done a whole “two girls” series. I drew closer - it wasn’t a print.

Though dazed by the opulence, I hadn’t missed what Karen had said. Will liked me. I longed to interrogate her about how exactly she knew Will liked me, and what form, exactly, Will’s liking took.

I know Will and Lisa (who would be joining us in a minute) are just friends. Not that it matters, we’re heading back to New Haven later - but Karen’s statements were capable of activating a girl's guy-dar.

Karen, wearing socks but no shoes, came to a sliding halt, on the wooden floor, by grabbing the door frame to stop an otherwise complete slide into the library. “You guys are going to the Ritz for lunch?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder, in a way that indicated that she knew the answer quite well.

The Ritz Carlton is a block away and our mission was to grab the food and bring it back here to eat. “Mind if I join?” she said, before I could answer her first question, all wide-eyed, blinking impatience.

“I don’t mind at ALL.” I said, Karen whooped and was off again down the hall. “I’M COMING TOO!” she yelled. I chuckled, knowingly - I’ve been there - I’m a little sister too.

Grass of green sways in the valley below
Voice unseen whispers hello
Carried on the breeze
Moving about with ease

Flowers a bloom
Heart wide, of room
Laughter an echoing boom
Across the rolling hills
A perfect painting in the windowsill
Great summer's thrill

- Jay M
June 15th, 2021

He’s dead, the *******
Last I saw him up the Bombax tree
Stealing wool out the clouds
Rolling it into ***** and
hanging them by the boughs

I cracked its hollow bones
He helped cut the rest—
Together, I tied them firm
And covered with leaves
covered with dreams
with paints

Houses, and red bushes,
and green birds I made
All, beneath them bruised skies, I placed
I gifted them all to him,
He hung them by the cotton *****
— by the fiery blooms
of that flushed tree
We carved songs out the dirt
Carved for the withered,
and the birds

He’s dead, the *******—
Chopped down the Bombax tree
and buried our flowers
— buried them breathing
My paintings, he nailed to the sky
Pieces of clouds lie bare in the mud
Where he planted a poem
and spilled his soul to
water the seed
that would never sprout

For the dead, we wrote,
—for the winged
They at my colours laugh
and I listen, and I listen, and I laugh
A dreamer that he was,
a dreamer he made of me
He lives there now, the traitor—
plucked the sleep out my nights
One by two by three by ten

Bombax tree, we joked, ******
red out the stilled
now we do not joke, now we’re still—
Red flowers stilled—
He’s dead, the *******
Chopped down our home
Left me with those empty boards
Red, his very own paint
Blue, stollen from the dawn

A thief that he was
a thief he made of me—
I, too, borrow yellow out the daisies
and trick these frogs into spitting green
But what do I paint?
He’s deaf, the *******.
Dumb, even—
What do I paint, huh?
The whole **** world’s
a painting gone wrong
What do I birth out these tired hues?
Last I did, he sold them to the wind
The *******—
beautiful, dead *******
Traitor—

In Amsterdam a few years ago I stood below 12 sunflowers.
Standing still I stared at the bright strokes, bold
With something but I.
Could not understand I.
Did not see a plan, and I.
Felt small, my heart in my hand alone below bright beaming sunflowers
Some sort of morse code.

Through the frame I look at sunflowers still stale.
For a moment I was nauseous and the world spun round
Like a horror story the painting asks for a gift.
I could not provide, salty eyes and lips
I could not give, a heavy handed thought.
So I turned on my heel
and left.

On Cassatt's easel
afternoon stretches out
its pink pastel faces
cool as the palms breeze
warm as the oolong tea

We are all rare paintings

Hanging in a gallery of the world

Abstract

Surreal

Technical

Many more designs of magical

Forced of genetics

Which created our images

A painter with a passion

Our bloodline maps the idea

As the bond of our family ignites

The design we all are seen on

A tapestry made of life and its forever living force

Judges cannot give the prize to any

Just one

As we all have a story within the vision

Of the art that we all are.

Share a smile and invite others to the gallery

As you are a bright message

Waiting to teach its knowledge

To the world

Of the worlds libraria

A valuable asset to the force that moves the Earth

A Solomon truth that marks history.

A book opened with well scripted passages.

Welcome to the “real world history.”

As souls originated well before the Earth.

Now splendor lights our way

Out of our mother’s womb

As we are born changing yet another day