POEM | EKPHRASTIC | AMERICA

The Program or Please Don’t Grab the Exhibits

Painters predicting the future

I couldn’t find a suitable-sized image for all screens that was fair use. Below is the painting of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Cow Skull: Red, White, and Blue (1931), which is the source of inspiration for this poem.

Welcome patrons and patriots to the unveiling.

In lieu of the annual White House portrait ceremony, we present Painters Predicting the Future.

With a flip of black velvet, we’re opening our country, our meat plants, displaying with transparency our Great Lady, our nation’s x-ray.

Hiding beneath the bleach of faded blue jeans, she awaits with abrasive armory.

Don’t be fooled by her handlebar hips. She’s no carnival trip with cotton candy.

She’s appealing, we know.

Just look. Don’t touch,

no matter how tempting, no matter your inherent wont to start in the South, enter her mouth of bladed bone, beef picked from the teeth, lick the sutures of her wounded seam, and gaze into those beady eyes,

the heartland jagged and chaste, you must practice restraint.

Resist her ossified folds, and stay behind the scarlet ropes.

American writer

Trump did not continue the traditional White House portrait ceremony that involves unveiling portraits of your predecessor, so I made my own portrait ceremony. This poem is the first in a series.