Old Canyon Studio

My mother's studio sits in an old niche
by the side of the road. The slow smell of oils
infuse the oaks and sage brush. Engrossed
in another cross, she paints. Oblivious.


I love her studio. It looks like pieces
of strange dreams, scattered hallucinations nailed
to the barn’s silver walls: the frog our dog barfed
up; old Mexican papier-mâché dragons
dangling by their broken tails; a Balinese
lion mask; a hundred Christs on a hundred
crosses; portraits of her children; pallets, thick
with sienna, cerulean, ochre, green,
bright colors that tumbled into her blackness;
antique Chinese embroideries; dead flowers,
starfish, sand dollars, her lucky cormorant;
a milk pink potato bug in the small space
between Adam’s fingertip and life; charcoal
hands tacked everywhere; small pieces of faces:
eye:nose:brow, mouth:jaw. Paintings lining the walls.


She scrubs the 4 x 5 foot homemade canvas
with a new sable brush, a camel hair clenched
between her teeth, her face and hands a Pollock,
adds an empty wine bottle to the old trunk.