By Cold Water

Aftersketch for “Self-Portrait as Dandelion Head Discovered in the Crop of a Partridge”

| 3 5 Aftersketch for “Self-Portrait as Dandelion Head Discovered in the Crop of a Partridge” The pedicel was waxy enough to draw with, wooling at the roots, and I kept wanting to say Mama had a baby and his head popped off but that seemed obvious as a head on a platter, the Baptist’s head, blood spilling over the gold rim and caking in his long curls (as in Titian’s version), Salome looking downwardly askance at the head her mother had asked for after the girl’s dance provoked so deep an arousal in Herod that, drunk, hard, he offered to honor her any request, or by turns, by default, her mother’s: Herodias, married to her brother-in-law-of-old, who despised all critics of her marriage, among them John: who is most often portrayed seated next to a lamb or pointing toward the sky, who would’ve eaten the dandelion head discovered in the crop and likely the still-kicking grasshoppers I’ve found on other occasions. John who said he’d seen who he’d said was coming. Was sure of it. His prophecies. Who among the us that I am can say as much? Head on a platter or not. ...