Beasts and Violins

Spooky Portrait

100 Spooky Portrait For your late-October birthday, I’ve framed the black pencil sketch that girl did of you and me at the downtown October art show. I placed it in the fanciest frame I could find from one of those discount overstock stores Canadians have ruined for the rest of us. It has plastic pearls on all corners and is made of milky green glass, with accents in metal lace patterns. It cost six dollars. A dollar more than the picture it would hold. With a compass knife, I carved a mat from cardboard stock, decorated it with purple drawings of human limbs and eye balls, then assembled everything and wrapped it in newspaper. This was all an enjoyable task, which I considered fitting for the sketch. That haunted sketch with me in a turban, and a beard more angular than the one I wear. You, one eye twice the diameter of the other, a smile stretched and curling with your hair. Both of us in ornate clothing. Also the skeleton baby between. It should have seemed presumptuous to bestow such a death on a pair of youthful lovers, but here we welcomed the little skull and bones. You stroked it. I had a bottle for feeding in my right breast pocket. Though the portrait couldn’t show what the bottle was filled by, I’ll tell you now it was steaming red candle wax. This page intentionally left blank. This page intentionally left blank. ...