Attention
I start by counting the buttons, the creases in his sleeves, the creases
in the drapes behind him
and the bright crystals on the drapes,
his hands and the streaks of light on his hands, the streaks of light on his hair, the mirror
behind him, the crystals around the frame of the mirror, the decay
in his forehead, right earlobe, hands, fingers, left leg—
The light shining through is light from a scanner, light replicated
by the absence of ink on the page. I imagine what’s cropped below his knees:
the military boots he must be wearing, the flash shining off polished leather, movement.
The floorboards creak as he shifts anxiously, impatiently, no, I am impatient, I am anxious—
What can I imagine? His arm getting tired? Will anything change if I ask it as a question—
Is your arm getting tired? How long have you been standing there
holding still, how much longer, who are you looking at, did they force you
to smile, are you smiling, is the wool itchy, is it warm, are you warm, too warm—
What am I doing? All I can think to do is address paper.
I see my grandma’s eyes, her nose, my mother’s and mine.
I can’t stop thinking of my grandma crying trying to hide her vomit under her sheets,
Attention
which she mentioned so casually to me and never to my mother.
When the nuns caught her, they made her wash her sheets all through the night—
no, I won’t describe that. Who am I addressing here?
I squint one eye when I smile. My right shoulder hangs lower than my left—
We aren’t these cherry-picked comparisons but why can’t I stop making them?
The crystals look like rain dripping. His face is as pale as the crystals.
The portrait looks like a mottled leaf. No, it looks like a decaying portrait.
Comparison here feels like another form of staging—
And all this time I haven’t noticed that the backdrop is painted.
In different portraits, students are standing in front of a painting of a balcony, a pasture,
an open window. The sky is always the same dissolving gray as the mirror.
Everything is staged. His paled face, his expression, the tilt of his chin,
the positioning of his hands, the ornate drapes and mirror, the succulent painted
halfway into the frame, blooming toward his shoulder—
Joshua Balicki
