- Portrait of José Clemente Orozco, Doris Ulmann, New York City, 1929
When she asks me to removemy spectacles, I am wary, feelas if she is asking me to reveala wound. The lensesa closed window betweenwhat I have seenand what I can showher. Populations in my mind,writhing. Outside, Park Avenueslides by, motor purring. The hand,she says. How did that losschange you? She has the kindof simmering stillness that permitsthe question. It was all right,I say. Once I rememberedwhat remained.
I raise my one hand and hold italoft. The thumb and fingers forma circle. A third eye burning. [End Page 566]
lisa beech hartz directs Seven Cities Writers Project, which brings creative writing workshops to underserved communities. She currently guides a workshop in a city jail. Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, Redivider, Mud Season, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. She lives in the Tidewater region of Virginia with her husband and four sons.
