To Salvador Dali

I could stop and stare for hours,
twisting into focus
lines from your brush. 
Lines that run down the page 
without slingshot support.
Lines that fade into each other,
bring out double meanings,
release what the concrete hides.


Hovering over the page,
I forget being me.
Wonder what it's like
to have drawers unfold your sides.
I create too, sometimes.
Imagination flowing out,
lazing words over the edges of notebook pages.
Words that slip out of reality, 
floating like your paintings.


So I ask you,
Is it better to start with the pomegranate 
and explode through the bayonet?
Or does she always come first?
She is the one at the end of all the sodomy.
Bread, pianos, virgins, skulls--
It all leads back to her,
I can see it in her eyes.

When she has eyes.

                           -JM 2001

Photograph Courtesy of the Library of Congress New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection.