What is in This Painting?

an experiment with interpretation

Take a long look. I did. For three hours I looked and looked and looked. I wrote what follows as I tried to find some meaning. Written off the rip to see what I find…

this is how I see...this painting.

allow your focus to shift into blurry haze

stare until you see a prismatic unicorn emerge

now

think 1980's Trapper Keepers

there's a dollar hidden in the corner of a round room

it's a fun game

hear the cheap velcro of the elementary school organizer

smell the ditto ink

and the zip zip zip of my velcro Roos

times tables and spelling tests

lunch boxes and a plastic smelling thermos

stiff Levi jeans on the first day of school

school daze smelled like hope

without knowing the definition of hope

that was me, an un-besmirched boy