impressionist calender, 2012

I will be the only face here today
the painting is of course a portrait
I will sit patiently in my kitchen
remembering the colors of the distant day
the strokes of movement conversational
disappearing still there are these features
those cannons could be nostrils those
great horned orchids could be ears
the tongue is paused in flight
the lanterns show only the mirror
in the pantry these regular memories
adding up into an image surprisingly
coherent but still a face not on a dollar
bill nor on a mountainside nor even
on a magazine I remember when Keith
Kelley was distraught he was too old
to win Yale Young Poets pushing past
forty hankering for his little piece of
the great vine and me
and me and who I thought it was
I might be long past forty long
shadowed by the errors the wrinkled
visage of the garden dying slowly as
autumn segues nicely into that cold
winter