by Alita Pirkopf
In the clean, clean house,
all the cleaning
wiped away everything
that touched me.
No fingerprints on glass-
topped tables or glass
doors that slipped open
and slid back.
In a glass house
almost
without breathing,
I watched
my own master
mother (who painted
O’Keeffe animal skulls
and flowers)
contain chaos,
control color,
clean up afterward,
with turpentine,
everything,
except her palette,
where wild swirls
of paint poised,
like comets
or asteroids
ready to orbit
or explode.
Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing