In Eight Parts

i. I grew up an anxious painting by my dad’s shaking hand. In the painting of my dad, a quiet hole beats through the dull, black night. I’m heir to an orange heart in the rhythmic black where a man leans quietly and wonders. I wonder about my dad, a hole in my painting. I used to think my dad was dull, but his shaking hand gave rhythm to my body. In my dad’s painting, a hole glows orange in the dull night where I sit beneath the canvas looking up. My dad looks down and laughs. When I went into my dad’s painting and saw a man lean toward a bright, orange hole, night shook through my shirt in an inherited rhythm, duplicating the heart held by his anxious body. My painting a laughing dad. My heart a hole where on a bright, orange night, I dropped a tattered shirt, shaking. ii. My dad said the man was meant to be looking at the painting he’s in, but it didn’t quite work. And so the hole where he’s looking now. The finger-thick lines around him don’t hide a failed painting or reveal any struggle to mean. My dad believes in action and the truth of process: a man looks into a hole and so he is. He looks past the hole to what brought him to it. The tattered painting doesn’t work as finger-thick evidence of his struggle to mean, but the correspondence of his belief shakes through its presence. To believe in holes and men looking into them. To lean toward action and the presence of process where a man looks at the painting he’s in and is. iii. A man looks at the hole he’s in and laughs. He never thought about what the colors mean, the hole bright orange in the black night. Like babies painting a painting of babies, the man laughs at the hole he’s in and looks down to feel his heart beneath a tattered shirt. He’s shaking like an old man’s dad. Is a man the hole he falls into? Colors are the correspondence of babies— they lean and fall into the holes we leave them. A baby looks at the hole he’s in and laughs. He shakes, no colors or dads to hold him still. iv. My dad’s fingers spilled around the surface without distinction, causing the offense we call process. The painting, having the grace of endurance, allows the line its tiny provocation, but lacking the confrontation that would compel the painting into itself—the man looks down, not in; we look at, not through. The painting communicates by presence alone, letting us know that it’s here without a message, or a message embodied in its delivery, a swallowed swallow. The man and the hole he looks into are homage to us. The man doesn’t have a mouth, the hole doesn’t have a shape. Our provocation is presence alone. v. I used to went into my dad’s painting I grew up In When I dull black orange heart wonder about quiet and saw a man      I      my dad      a hole rhythmic wonders the painting through the night I’m heir to anxious painting     my dad’s painting     My painting an inherited rhythm his shaking hand glows in my painting      think my dad’s a hole beats of my dad where I sit In a orange hole black where my night shirt shook a tattered night in the canvas      in the dull shirt        and a man leans by shaking hand       I dropped a laughing dad beneath an orange night     an orange hole quietly my dad in duplicating heart his anxious dull rhythm     My dad held by body was lean down to my body but gave up looks and laughs through a bright My heart      the looking toward a hole shaking on a bright where vi. doesn’t work     where he’s looking now but the painting he's in is presence He looks tattered     The man looking so finger-thick My dad     The finger-thick lines    the correspondence to the painting he’s in     And the hole it didn’t quite mean what brought him to it evidence of his process reveal the man was meant a hole of My action at the dad of any truth To mean in looks      and of looks to be don’t hide my dad at work     toward his past he is the hole the painting believes in but shakes around failed action    struggle to lean through for process where a man and a struggle and a painting as to him     and so To belief      or its presence said to believe in holes and men looking into them vii. the hole looks at A man he’s in and shakes Like A baby looks at the correspondence of babies and laughs     He bright and orange painting never a man he falls into       Colors are of babies the colors mean no colors     they lean night babies painting a black still hole about dads he’s the hole we fall into     the holes in his shaking heart in the thought leave them     and down the what hole He’s like a tattered shirt      the man laughs at the looks he’s an old man’s hole    to feel beneath dad or to hold the laughs He Is in him viii. we call a swallow homage to provocation the hole doesn’t have a message fingers in its delivery lacking grace but the man looks down without endurance confrontation embodied    swallowed causing the process of presence having shape    letting us know that it’s there not in    not without a message     a tiny surface My dad’s distinction allows The painting its mouth spilled The man through The painting the line we look at     the painting into or around      Our man looks into that the offense would he alone have The us and the is are by presence alone the hole communicates itself the provocation doesn’t compel