I tell her, it pays nothing,
and the degrees are expensive,
success may as well be stories
you tell at campfires,
and that even the great artists
just end up teaching
community college,
state if they’re lucky,
even then it only takes
a few workshops
for the motivational speeches
to turn into fake compliments,
and that amateur rush
of adrenaline
you get after thinking
this piece is the ticket,
is the best it’ll ever
make you feel,
but at dusk sometimes
you’ll stare outside
smell incense rising
from the garden flowers,
ponder their authenticity,
peak into the dark space
between forest trees,
and hold the bit of light
that is dimming,
yet that brevity
is what makes the moment
so beautiful
you’ll never let go,
the aftermath of sundown,
last holdouts down, swinging,
and to be slaughtered,
never such a canvas,
and this will be you,
only fancy
when someone
has taken a brush,
feathers on a quill pen
after being plucked
from a warm body,
it may all happen
after you are buried
in an ugly place,
the life of an artist
is noticing the fragments
of death in winter walks,
and finding
sacrality in dying things.
The glory
is in the open book,
dusty and out of print,
laid on a strangers table,
stained with coffee,
ink, laughter,
tears.