His Lines

His phone light dances across the panes of his small,

rectangular black-framed glasses.

With my eye I draw the shape of his hand becoming a wrist,

forearm becoming a bicep, shoulder, inclined neck

like a hungry ant crawling the line he makes against space,

pressed upon the world, no pencil in hand.

A young artist once, I realized that to perceive line and value—

light, penumbra, shadow—

is as rewarding as creating them on paper, on canvas.

I vowed to live my life like that: no patron, no place

needed to store large, lonely Modern paintings,

or cardboard sleeves to stash charcoal sketches, yellowing.

Here I am now, in my 50s, unknown but knowing.

My own lines softened, blending. So be it.

“What do you want to do,” he asks.

“Stare at you watching your phone,” I say and ask,

“What do you want to doooooo,” flubbing my finger

over my lips on the oooooo like two fleshy, silly guitar strings,

my mouth the sound hole.

He laughs, “Now I don’t know, since you asked it like that.

Anything is possible.”

For Dorell on our 13th Valentine’s Day