Daniela Muhleisen

  from above he focuses the lens on the spots under



the rim of her brow. Kisses to the skin. Those you cannot take. She tells him



that which makes up this world is the beautification of our mistakes. The



error, the error preceded by the other, an error, and Jacqueline



 



is so beautiful, even the painter, even the young man turned old, will marry her,



and draw her, and remember her shape, every day, as though he were missing from it…



So that when the sun sets the orchids mellow.



Who is left to make a picture of these creatures.



 



When the clouds quiet down over the rooms in the house.



These floors, to walk them, is beautiful,



though they were made for Jacqueline.  He leaves the lights on,



the plants dried, sometimes even the paint



hardens overnight. The cheekbones of



 



a woman will lift the more her mother misses her…



In one year he paints her one hundred



and sixty times. To count the days that belong



still to the sky.



How beautiful she was.



She tells him.



When even the film dries out



he paints her neck as long as he can make it. He leaves her



 



all his sculptures. Were she here, he would not find her. Were she 



a desert bird and not a Parisian queen she would have imprinted on



this wall long ago, and wakened the shadows that run amok it, and tried,



blooming flower from blooming flower, to summon



the small air that makes the ground lift one step closer to its firmament. 

It is the right of the student to leave his shoes 



outside the bathroom for the man himself squats barefoot.  



In the mornings the man finishes another book, orders his milk,



and when the milkman comes to fetch his tip,



 



it is the right of the student



who has forgotten the money again to ask for forgiveness. 



It is forgiveness that trembles in the open



window and the open window that 



 



cries out to the world outside the bathroom



of the twenty-fourth floor



where the mirror is turned 



upside down on the floor



 



to support Picasso’s “Prophet holding a baby owl.”



In the bathroom,



it is Picasso who proffers the soap bar. In the bathroom, 



the student and the man talk little, drink milk,



 



listen to the marionettes for it is winter, 



and finally come to the conclusion that there will never be



anything of substance to argue about, and so



the meetings with the man on the toilet will end. It is Thursday. 



 



It is the right of the student to leave the bathroom at this point. 



At this point the man will stand up 



from his seat, flush, wash, sigh.



The milkman will himself choose to take a rain check,



 



The student will, as is his right, mention to his mother



the name of the man with whom he has spent



his mornings, and his mother will lament to the church. 



The mirror will be newly hung 



 



on the wall opposite the window,



and as the snow nestles into the cracks of the 



lonely apartment, a voice will 



be heard on the telephone, sullen but crisp,



answering the questions it has posed to itself.