Revisionist Poetry – “Root That Knows the Stone”: On the Stubbornness of Making – Grand Displays of Imagination, v.5

The basement keeps its single bulb—olive and patient.
He sands the edge of a face until the grain sings.
A jar of brushes stands like sentries, stiff with dried oil;
a moth rehearses the same, small circle around the light.

He paints the same jaw three nights in a row,
correcting an insistence that will not be quiet.
Impostor comes with pockets full of pebbles—he drops them on the floor—
the clink is a metronome; he counts them back into work.

There is a rhythm to the hands: stretch canvas, mix a blue, wait—
the wrist remembers what the eye forgets.
He signs in the corner like a locksmith turns a key,
each stroke a bolt fastened against a world that refuses to open.

When rain remakes the street, he keeps his lamp on—
stubborn as a root that knows the map of stone.