Auntie Luce’s Talking Paintings

Auntie Luce’s Talking Paintings — page 1
In my mother's bedroom behind the family and the jar that holds her wedding-day flowers a painting sits on a shelf pictures It’s a painting of me my eyes almost closed like I’m dreaming My braids hang like coal-colored ropes My face fills the frame so big and so close that if you look long enough it starts to look like a whole land brown hills melting into yellow valleys melting into red riverbeds and even the rivers silver light running smooth over the rocks