Good Pink. Bad Pink.
Carol Potter
When the child in mid-tantrum tried riding her pink scooter
directly off the platform and onto the packed train at 28th
& Broadway, her un-brushed hair bunched up in the back, her pink
jacket open, limbs
flailing1, we pretended to not see. Next to me
a man was leafing through the Sotheby's catalogue. Out the corner
of my eye, I could see a Matisse I'd never seen before, then
Duchamp. The edges of the woman all in pieces. Cubed. Like the child
in front of me. Hair, hands, eyeballs
askew2. Civilization
in its tweed coat on my left. The paintings he was studying
but would not exactly share with me. I went back to minding
my own business but then mother took the scooter back from
mad daughter who started twisting and screaming again.
I thought of telling her she could get arrested. Sent to reform school.
Adopted out. Anything. Her older sister smiled at me beatifically,
as if to say, Look what I put up with. She'd been dissembling,
Which I never got from my sister, nor her from me. That public tantrum.
What we took apart we took apart quietly and in private.
not looking like steps. Just odd blocks.
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