Jaimie Gusman

Orizzonte #80

after John Schuyler

Under the red streak,

we decide is an iron sea ledge,

is a childish blue scarf, a boy’s eyes

fluttering like drums.

In this painting

I am impaired.

Cannot hear, cannot swim,

cannot swallow the ocean’s

diagonal history

or cough up its living reef.

I smell white

am white as a baseline

acrylic stretched over

untreated linen.

Someone is dying

in the room where you imagined

you were being born.