My father, Peter Stuyvesant Fish,
fills our home with the sole somber notes of Bach.
His chords indent the walls like push-pins.
I stare at my uncle's photo, encased in a dusty frame with fractured glass.
On the island of Bermuda, we celebrate the fourth of July.
Sweet summer days, sweet still childhood.
I see: aluminum cupcake liners, whipped vanilla frosting,
red and blue rectangular sprinkles, emptied liters of Pepsi,
a plastic bag full of freshly picked strawberries,
ribbed potato chips, and a fresh kale salad.
The children left that off their plates.
Dusty blue Sadan, red pickup truck
a shadow breathes within.
Color blasts into the sky along with the sound of war cries
Up in smoke.
***
I stare at Porter's “A Girl in a Landscape” and wonder where her mother is
and wonder why the sea is a different shade than the sky.
I was inspired by this scene and carried it with me while I moved through time.
The world watches me shift and picks at my vulnerability
from abstraction came simplification and I discovered that I loved her.
***
1963, summers in Maine, our love grew and mixed with oil paints and East Coast landscapes.
I looked for stillness; he looked for chaos.
I painted the angles of the hills; he painted the hills without limits,
bleeding into one another and mixing with the pale blue sky.
In 1965, I write letters to strangers overseas
in the windowsill of a new place that is solely my own.
I paint glass bottles and the cityscapes behind them.
I write letters to strangers overseas
to keep in touch with some type of soul,
for I am alone now.
I write letters to strangers overseas,
and tell them about shifts in light
and shifts in my work
and shifts in my life.
I’m working in an art store, I tell my friend in Santa Barbara.
They let me paint with a discount.
My brush paints crinkly plastic film and the puckery skins of citruses.
I’ve formed a fetish for the stillness and purity of shining fruits and reflected light.
***
“To stop changing is to die” is what I told him the last night I lay in his arms.
Change was what I found comfort in. Maybe that’s why I never made a good lover.
At least not to him.
I painted what I saw, and he continued to paint what he interpreted.
I wondered if he had a painting that showcased how he interpreted me.
I imagine it blue, with streaks of red, and a bold line of yellow.
***
In Vermont, my uncle reminds me of my love for terracotta and slip.
Reminds me of what it feels like to form a naked woman with argil.
That season I made sculptures alongside chickens and straw.
***
Contemplation sings for years,
my memories showcased in aqua waters.
I paint glass and jewels lost in the sea.
I paint the honesty of life
as it displays itself before me.
I paint to make up for the years
when I was too busy tampering with reality
to appreciate its beauty clearly.
