Self-Portrait

Should I at some point acquire the right
to decide my self-portrait,
it would look like this:

A color photograph
with the edges and folds of everything
saturated by shade. Blurry, enough
to imply the impossibility of determining the Now.

I'd be standing
with feet just more than shoulders-width apart,
as though I just witnessed a start of some cataclysm
or angel of honesty disrupt the logic of the firmament
with a bomb of thought. Ready, to either flee
the final two breaths of my existence or blankly observe
the process of my vaporization.

Clothed, in a navy blue
dark enough to almost be midnight
but with the rainbow sheen of oil slicks
and crow feathers floating its surfaces.
Thick fabric.
Boxy in cut and shape.

Barefoot.

Hands empty.

The tips of my fingers, toes
and the edges of my feet all darkened
with a soot or grime or tone of burnt earth,
as though a shadow is sneaking in
from the ends of me.
Although not visible,
my penis would be likewise tinged,
and with a single pearl of semen
clinging against gravity.

I'd be wearing no glasses, wedding ring or watch.

A heavy-gauge copper wire encircling my right wrist,
symbolizing that while we're chained to the world
we can't not pull.

Our choice is how.

Face shaved.

Eyes closed calmly,
to imply my regard for this shared dream
versus my own.

Pockets bulging slightly
in the shapes of belongings I have taken
and been given by others.

My ego would be pictured in the foreground,
characterized as a balding puppet.
Its lid-less eyes darting
from unseen object to unseen object.
Squatting in a puddle of piss,
it would be picking out fragrant petals--
as a nod to my ambition.

Finally, I would have one hand lifted.
An index finger extended
as if it were a perch for a bird
that at some moment in the past or future
descends from a birdless sky.



by jerry gordon
1.31.08