Author's Reading (requires RealPlayer)

Ages ago, images ago,
she was accustomed to acclaim as a painter
of iris, content with replication:

Brushstroking floral vitals at their peak,
shape and sheen of the premises,
exactitude of shade,

the whole canvas conspiracy
of dimension in mitered space,
comfortable with awards for perfected views.

Suddenly disturbed by sightings
of unguessed galaxies in petals,
strange promises beyond lavender standards,

beyond bearded junctures of purple,
she sees runic nodes ripen beyond
the reach of sable hair and palette knife:

Planets and fetal faces inhabit white;
moons, lungs, mountains, bones
blend with pink plasma, dust of maroon.

The pale scent of yellow fades
from her sleeve. Armies and godsmiths,
prophets and poets abide in wet furls

as tropic pastels fail and fall.
Now the impatient stem, the stalk of knowing,
twisted like steel wire, supports a forming:

Marrow grows in the deep dimension.
There is no such thing as still life.
Her not quite captured subject seethes

on an inner palimpsest, stretches and turns
on a hewn pedestal, testing invented armatures,
clawing its way to the surface of her clay.

                                    --MONTSERRAT REVIEW, 2000