
Picasso
I found a year that likes my body
1921
girl sitting on a rock
Picasso painted a woman
with my thighs
walking around the museum
it hit me how Rubenesque
is not just some word
for someone who likes corned beef
there I was
naked on the edge of something
overlooking water
or was it salt
it was weird
nobody was screaming fat chick at the frame
nobody was making grieving sounds
but the girl in the painting looked sad
as though she knew
new ears were smudging
a forced liposuction
with rough acrylic
the caption said
girl sitting on rock
not woman who uses food to help cope
for the lack of empathy in her sphere
not the gyms are closed and there are
better muscles to develop
not girl one calorie away
from suicide
just flesh on a rock
her eyes dripping
question marks onto
girl looking into a mirror
the vibrancy
the need to chew the ice cubism
till the teeth bleed
the colors so deep
they look wet
the museum guards
watch me tentatively
I lean into the painting
I veer to the outside
to find out what Picasso
called each work
I like titles
their vocabulary of oil
the girl on the rock
whispered to me
go girl
I love museums
call me old fashioned
but I like face to face
conversations.

*****
Pablo Picasso: Nude Seated on a Rock, 1921.
Pablo Picasso: Girl Before a Mirror, 1932.
Poem reprinted in Indivisible: Poems for Social Justice with permission of Manic D Press.