Panic at John Baldessari’s Kiss

The aftermath always happening like an airplane falling, or a man midair falling from a horse, and an arrow, a gun, many guns pointing away, at us, our all bull’s-eye-on-the-mark. This is what he sees when he sees. Maybe Wrong or not, the appropriation, the film clip, chase, pressed lips over lips, photo moment on the minute-drawn breath in, the over, the under, bodies in black and white cut to pose, the way a kiss can pose, dispose of everything around it for another, dispose of thinking. It’s like waving good-bye. Mouth to mouth seeing as saying. Inside. Resuscitation back to the brain saying yes as the mouth makes an O. Circles for the digital age, colored dots for faces already made for erasing. Hurry, come, he, 6’7”, sees fifteen minutes from the Mexican border, cremates his old paintings up close. But the ashes were kept in a book urn, not so afloat in the ocean with my parents,Above, On, and Under (with Mermaid)