Sheza T.

to my painter,

I appreciate you —

how your impasto glistens
my torpid frame into a patina,
how you ram your fingers

underneath the chipped edges
of the paint like a williwaw
prying at its victims, how you drape

me in coat after coat of varnish
basting my pores shut like
stomata folding at night.

And when the visitors arrive,
their fingers grazing my new skin,
how they revel about the new

flowers you painted, that I hated,
on me — white daffodils fraying in the wind. How they splutter that this hue of blue

that you submerged me, browbeaten, in,
was the best they’ve ever seen me. And
your grin — unforgettable — splits

into a laugh I’d never
heard before
from you.

Perhaps I really am at my best
when I am polished to perfection,
under the foams of shellac

offered up to the mercy
of your visitors’ surveillance —
I am, forever, a wall,

posing
for them
for you.

First published in The Crossroads Review