Revisionist Poetry – “Basement Sun” – Grand Displays of Imagination, v.3

Basement: damp breath of plaster and turpentine.
A lamp pools like a small sun over a half-face—
a mouth not yet finished, a jaw undecided.
He works until the light invents patience.

There’s a calendar pinned above the sink,
the months crossed out with cigarette ash.
Ideas gather in a cardboard box —
old ticket stubs, a hand-scrawled compliment, a smear of cadmium red.

“Who are you painting for?” the jacket on the chair asks.
Impostor sits on the windowsill, a gray thing with cold hands.
Sometimes he answers in the dark: the answer is a sound
like coins collected in the throat.

He wagers with mornings: one folded newspaper, one knock at the door.
He signs his name in the lower-left corner, quietly, as if to test
whether ink will hold a life.