Anna Smetanenko, Walk on Water Night, 2021 (Artist Website)
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist
Everyone down here gets to feeling lonely—
it’s not just widows and rock stars, astronauts
on mock missions to Mars. Some want to forget
the weight of a human head. For me,
it’s a long time to go without one,
eyes closed, resting in my lap.
Here, we draw portraits with protractors
although there are no tender angles,
no soft geometry, even this far down.
What feels like a blow to your chest may be peonies.
Wait another decade just to be sure.
When clouds settle on the dawn, wearing
the dawn’s pink pajamas, you may believe
you’ll never need people again. From now on
you won’t care what you look like, but only
because you won’t really see yourself,
the self that’s vanishing, the one replaced
with a motherboard.
You’ve been told that beauty is on the inside
and take that to mean that to see it
you must cut yourself open. That’s right,
your father was a werewolf
before he died. It’s hard to say if I’m a monster.
I don’t know why I didn’t love him.
Occasionally a piano falls from the sky,
but there’s no one up there,
no one there to have let it go.