Matthew Bergey, House, 2016
Oil on Gesso board
11 x 8"
You walked back along the language, past the dark foliage and
flowers, along the cold edge of the field, slowly, as you did those
nights returning home from the store when you needed to be
alone, those nights when you lingered on the margin of the front
porch. You
forgot how it felt to be said: the gradual accrual over the years, the
heft, the inevitable narrowing of sense as the saying ran on. How
excited we were when you stepped through the screened frame of
reference carrying your plastic bags. We all looked up from our
anger and regret, came running in from the kitchen, and gathered
‘round you like the small brown sorrows I saw once
in our driveway pick apart a scrap of bread.