Everybody's drawing, but
they're starting from scratch;
primitive figures, all distorted
by lack of talent; faces
put through the oven,
and you, a mood, and you,
you have arranged this
to come out so, you
have scheduled all the trains–
arranged for one to leave
Philly at 7pm, doing a brisk
100 mph, all the passengers,
with their faces pressed
against glass, drooling,
either hopped up on coffee, or
sedated by cocktails, and
these passengers don't regret
a lost lover–they think of
you, you who fathers the word
problems for the math texts
of this world, you who draws
my face into a cubist
grab bag, charcoal-marked
and sad like the top
of the Eiffel Tower;
the face, a splintered thing,
flattened out and stapled
to the Eiffel Tower.
You sit there, unschooled, with
a pad, pastels, and a palette
ranging from grey–the grey
of a fog-stanchioned bridge–
to black, as in the black of
the blackboard of everybody's mind.