lines may 20

the marks & drips off the edge of the canvas
were more interesting than the picture,
according to the artist's statement.she thought
about hanging the dropcloth but no,she took pictures
of the dropcloth & made a video destroying
first the original canvas,then the dropcloth
then the photos of the cloth.we watched the video
at the kunsthalle near the rathaus in kreuzberg then
went out for espresso.
                                   the watercolors
on the wall of the bakery:figures.one,
an old woman with her walking sticks
like a cross-country skier,i had a hard time
with her at first but by the time
we were finished with our coffees
my conception of the world had normalized.
i had grown fond of the brutal little woman &
considered buying the comfortable,
unremarkable watercolor
for 30 euros,unframed.


.....



the asian store down the alley in steglitz
where we bought rice noodles & cilantro
& the vietnamese woman's english
was better than my german &
we filled your backpack up with rice
papers & bean paste & mae ploy chicken
sauce & outside the sun shined,was
that a dream?my eyesight had returned,
the operation at the charite putting the world
back in my head for a few more years
& i would make dinner that night,able to see
the rice papers as i rolled them up,
no longer cooking only with my fingertips.it
wasn't a dream though it feels like one
today,here,on the other side of the earth.