Poems The hard-won privileges of the dead Dead men's tales The clothes never get clean Title belt St. Sophronia's cathedral Or cough up smoke into a handkerchief Now that she's been high enough up to see Paris Title belt I. Henri Rousseau picked the flowers this morning, always waiting unto the last second.  The pits in the yard are the shape of a child's teacup.  She slurps! and her French accent is fake.  "Sacre blurr!"  [It's too hot.] Some people are susceptible to hypnotism.  The same goes for portrait-sitting--you must let your guard down. The model's hair is solid marble from the pits of Carrara, but she cannot hold perfectly still as a flower in the vase. II. After all the absinthe Rousseau drinks, he has to use the bathroom.  "Absinthe makes the heart go fonder." She blushes, and the color on her face turns wrong. "I'll be right back," he says, without noticing. It is my place to lunge upward from the bathtub-- reluctantly.  The water is so green and tepid, the lilies rivaling Monet's.  But "Sacrifice means giving up something good for something better." My character is the swamp creature, moaning, hands meanacing the air.  "How did you get in here?"  I notice the curtain on my shoulders as a heavy-weight boxer's towel.  It glimmers in the artificial light.  I spit.  "Hey, pal, I'm asking the questions here."  I grab his throat.  Crystal says I should have knocked him out and dressed up in his clothes--but they were ugly.  "Plus, what does it matter?  I look at the painting, not vice-versa.  She won't even miss me." III. I aim to throw the painting in the fireplace, then smash some windows, overturn a table, and escape carrying the safe and the deed to the swamp--but someting stops me, tugging at my arm.  "What is it, sugar?"  "That poor lady. She's wasted her entire afternoon."  So I take up where Rousseau left off, except I hardly touch her face.  I pore over the flowers, the roots, to make them grow again-- break through glass, latch onto the lattice of the model's arm. Iv. I let Crystal go check on her father.  He bobs up and down like a rubber duck.  My question was, "Do I have to hypnotize you or can you do as you're told."  "The second one." You cannot do anything under hypnosis which you wouldn't do in real life.  The same goes for portrait-sitting.  That's the trouble.  The model keeps almost as still as a vase of flowers.  That's the trouble. "Can't you look more lifelike--maybe spin around like a figure skater?  At least raise an eyebrow like you don't understand my question."  "Like this?" "No, not that eyebrow.  This one," I say. "You mean, the one on the canvas?"   Home | Email