This is the Woman

Joan R., Baltimore, 1967

This is the woman who

drained her toilet dry

 painting butterflies in enamel

spiraling ‘round the bowl

to dance in every flush

This is the woman who

pushed all her bedroom furniture

together to create

a bower tower  bird nest

beneath the deep blue ceiling

she’d painted and covered

with luminescent stars

this is the woman who

was driven to paint wildly

a strange abstract work

she brought for us to see:

black zigzagging, sliding

scaring the blood  red ground

halted by a  grand orange X

We gazed bedazzled

Colors, lines screaming  out to us

and Joan,  as if waking with a cry

 muttered

“of god, this is where . . .

he died”

This is the woman

Who drove the VW bug

that skidded and killed

the man we all called Angel

The perfect blue-eyed hippie

All in love, but not lovers like Joan

Brazenly mapped before us

now

forever

the pain scarring scaring her mind

(middle of the night meditation/poem)

 3/26/19  jmf-w