Friday, October 28
AFTER PICASSO'S "HEAD OF A WOMAN"
That night the neighbor’s cat pawed a pigeon down and tore off one wing.
Whiskey glazed the glasses we kept refilling.
Across the street—more an alley, the length of my extended body—I watched a woman’s toes
under a stiff curtain. She mopped to a song about a girl tearing a flower from her hair.
I think you’re supposed to think a man pinned it there.
Her daughter sat in their doorframe. A boy lighting her lower lip.
She smoked for the first time. I heard her ask how she looked
holding it. With you,
I wonder what I should be. Are my hands stitched back? Is my face completely behind me. (Taneum Bambrick)