Portraiture

In this drawing, the girl hides behind herself. The sun is too much     in her hands. In this drawing, the girl’s double   wears green around her hair, a decision made

to tell them apart. To be so lucky. To remember a night with him—     here’s a string, he said, pulling it between his hands.   With her butter knife, he frayed its ends, then peeled the red line

away from itself. At the end of a black hole’s endlessness,     every present layered onto itself. Shift one, and another shifts,   his hand returns to the light switch. Here, in her studio, the artist

wears a long braid down each shoulder. She glances at the window,      at her reflection laid out against the street’s bright leaves—   both here, for now, though all the paintings look away.