The Story of a Painting (and Lot’s Unnamed Wife)
Western myths unfamiliar to her, she turns around
in the driveway to see her son leaning against the glass
watching her leave one more time. His eyes blur
with tears. Or hatred? He’s just a boy nine years old
who loves his mother. Why does she have to go? She takes light
and freedom with her, leaving him to the king who rules
in darkness with a fist. She turns. She sees. She hears
glass shatter, drawing lines between her and her son.
Such a mirror cuts a canvas. She drives with closed
curtains keeping the image, the snapshot of her son
in the window personal and painful all the way to her studio.
She knows who pays the price. But she pays also as she stumbles
into that dark place, opens the curtains, finds white and silver
for a crushed face, black for hair and eyes. For that evening
she forgets all she has learned at art school and growing up.
She paints until with her Korean signature she remembers.
~
Threw My Jacket
in the laundry machine
washed away stains
from an all too late red wine dinner
sorrow from Yom Ha Shoah
sweat from a sudden playing of the guitar
and your lipstick when you embraced
me good-bye—don’t worry—
I’m trouble to all who find me.
Washed my house key clean after years
of abuse hanging on a colorful string
between my breasts, cold steel nestling
in that warm soft space where a small latch
key kid still guards her treasure fifty
long and unexpected years later.
I also killed my cellphone
and washed away my warpaint
all natural and cruelty to animals free
but that handwritten draft
of the free-breaking eruptive
note you so inspired and layered
snuck out of my pocket
secretly of its own mind.
Without a word it was waiting
for me outside on the steps
to the house in the rain
when I returned—script half
erased yet fully remembered.
____________
Swedish-born Gunilla Theander Kester is an award-winning poet and the author of If I Were More Like Myself (The Writer’s Den, 2015). Her two poetry chapbooks: Mysteries I-XXIII (2011) and Time of Sand and Teeth (2009) were published by Finishing Line Press. Her latest collection, Hold Me Still, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press.