By: Elijah Zitler
She could make an Aloe Vera into an octopus
as long as her fingertips could help
the going get going.
She could make a brush jar into the essence
of dishonesty and spirit’s cross-section
or a sketch of the two entangled.
She could make a canvas into a maple turntable.
She could make a neck into a gourd
highlighted with gasps around the chipped
piece of an Adam's apple.
She could make an art into a mansion
with just the help of commission
and the mouth whispering butter smeared
in arcs into her pounding hands.
I could see her mulberries in the skies above us, the other ones—You know! The other ones!
Her hands rotated as if attached to a tire axle.
I was mesmerized.
I would be a still life,
but I can’t sit still in front of her.
The Artist can make the still into the
unstilled.
What a power! She has finally taken this
yardstick from the whimsically snapping
ballpoint pens all in a weird row.
I am terrified. Finally. Yes. The octopus is
our occasion to roam under the galloping
bathroom pavement. And then—to draw
And then—to paint
And then—to conceptualize the geometry of
the saints
And then—to faint
The Artist—the artist—the artist—
cannot draw a horse without making him
grateful—under one brush’s tarnish or another’s slinking sheen,
even if he’s caged. Even-handed, she repels
the trotting fields and the buzzing plains.
Elijah Zitler is a graduate of New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Creative Writing, and Benjamin Franklin High School. He lives in New Orleans serving and being a barista.
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