For Me

                    after Faith Ringgold's Woman looking in a Mirror 

​Artist: Faith Ringgold
b. Oct 8, 1930 New York, New York 
Title: American People Series #16: Woman Looking in a Mirror 
Date: 1966
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The world was already here
Serene in its otherness.
It only took you to arrive
On the late afternoon train
To where no one awaited you.
– Charles Simic
 
 all at once she appears   
walled into her dangers
listening to what doesn’t answer
signing her name   on the whole wide world
letting go nothing
and anything
feeling like nothing inside her

sometimes she’s fenced into stone
silent    dried up     gray
as her youth    reveals a garden of mirrors
 
painting  her
inadequately                mended.
 
Without effort she sits perfectly still
on raging      roots  
 
which rise                    like a colorless bird
out of  a black and white photo.
 
If only I had known     
her heart                      would be a landscape of  weeds
I would have stayed longer.
 
I would have dreamed
with my mouth            wide open
 
and did all that has not begun.
 
If only I had known   what has left already
I would have waited,
 
would’ve sustained her tall spirit   of black dust
kissed her nose
and lingered   for her love   
                                which blossoms   in such serene solitude.