Paint me ageless, my hair the color of summer wind.
Give me teeth sharp enough to take bites from this world.
With dry brush strokes, show that I am a seeker of
of everything liquid; my hands divining rods
searching for whatever might bubble to the surface.
Portray that need across my features.
Remember, artistry was born in the desert. It came
screaming into the world, dry as a cow skull.
So draw me like a hard consonant, skin taut
across my bones. Make my eyes
periwinkle and holding history, my lips
stapled shut. And when you think this portrait
is finished, paint my slight heart upon my shoulder.
Color it deep vermillion and beating wildly.
—
Gail Braune Comorat is a founding member of Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild and is a co-author of Walking the Sunken Boards. She serves as an editor for Quartet, an online poetry journal by women fifty and over. She lives in the First State but spends her winters in Mazatlán where she dances outdoors, observes vultures, and eats lots of shrimp.
© 2022, Gail Braune Comorat
Halfway Down the Stairs 