“every good artist
paints what he is.”

a scent of anticipation
lifts from the canvas
blanketed with integral
pathways of paint.
each synapse -
deliberate,
vital to the next.
colors bleed
into patterns like
crimson on cement;
“number 8, 1949.”
yellow weaves through
muted grays
with trepidation;
“number 1, 1949.”
cigarette
pressed against lips;
smoke streams upward,
evanescent ghost
tracing thought
and happenstance
from that catacomb of
imagination.
liberated
by pigment that floods
each crevice of his palm and
the interlacing threads of
paint drying on the canvas;
solidifying a dream.

“it is all
a big game
of construction”