Georgia O’Keeffe, Like an Early Blue Abstraction, 1976/77
At the end she could only see out of the edges of her eyes.
It is only watercolor again, only paper.
One gesture, clockwise pressure and release.
The paint as it dries as the brush lifts off the end of the curves
scatters blue flecks into emptiness.
Beneath the dark initial line blue bleeds
to its edge, clouds, unseeable.
One slow mark stops of its own accord
breathes above the water, almost touching but not
its sense at rest in its curved white space
before the lens came to rest on you
before you gave up watercolor before you became art.
And now your hand lifting again, only
paper, water, that same blue, only less —