EATING PAINT

On the white mountain of sheets
with the washing machine chugging
women's voices filled the air
and all that reference to she
the soothing sounds of ocean
and I learned it was a name for me
as if I wasn't there
I thought myself invisible
all that sssshhhh like
sleep in the afternoon
I could hear the white paint on my face
giving away secrets
Me, eater of white paint
in search of the small glass vial
of ice cream so magical
it never needed the polar north
of iceboxes to keep it firm,
and the burning white coat
coating my tongue
Baba baba baby in the laundry pile
eater of paint
making a metaphor of white
the handwriting of the x
not quite formed
the shape of writing
marking the spot
to sculpt writing from the white field
and later, small dark stains on sheets
once the flame of full blown roses
in midday sun
bringing death into the house
my grandfather going to the hospital
carrying a suitcase
who wouldn't let me come with him
and I wondered about the need for suitcases
in the world to come
There is something so still, so timeless
about midwinter light
a tangible quality that almost hangs in the air
like the sharp scent of bay or sage
and the slow shaping of all this white
toward the lucid scrawl of writing

86/87?
draft


My Canon TypeStar 6 was not above typing over itself. I lost a lot of work that way. I wrote one breakthough prose piece about my mother, and it was a black blob at the bottom of the page. In theory, the piece still existed on the film typewriter ribbon. I didn't think to retrieve it that way, but I did wrap a lightbulb with the ribbon as a protest against technology gone awry.