I wanted to paint Emily,

but I could never paint,

but I wanted to paint Emily

so I swerved the simple

questions about the process

& I interrogated the problem

of painting a beautiful woman

without being able to paint

a beautiful woman. I took

one canvas. I covered it from

corner to corner with dark blue,

my favorite color

& I called the painting “Portrait

of Emily in a Dream”. I cheated

to metaphor a present

for Emily. She was brutal

& frank when I gave it to her

& she hung it over our bed.