Informant38

Poetry Daily: Today's Poem
Kindergarten Open House, Observing Art


This must be what hell is:
to be the man drawn by the child
not yet dextrous enough to keep
his insides within the lines.
One of his eyes floats like a pesky fly
above his head,
his smile starts below his nose but crosses
the border of his face, reaching into space.
He looks like he was drawn on the run,
blurred by wind, or suffers radiation
from a dropped bomb, his body scrambled.
The blue of his shirt is liquid leaking
to the left and right of him, at least obscuring
inner organs surely painfully dislodged.
You want to help but can't
since crayons don't erase.
You want to tell him he really doesn't want
his brains back inside his head,
he's more creative than his buddy pinned
on the wall next to him with perfectly spaced eyes,
nose with nostrils, lips even.
Maybe he's the perfect drawing of a man in love,
all his insides a gooey mess.
Maybe we can't see, off to the side, outside the frame,
the similarly blurred woman telling him
he's loved back.
Maybe the child who drew this is a genius.
This must be what heaven is:
to be stuck this way forever
before the picture starts to focus,
you want to whisper in his ear �
the one connected to his head.

��0��

Neil Carpathios
Mid-American Review
Volume XXII, Number 2