by Denise Bossarte
The Art
First, they took the will. Everything that was left
to me by life. You can grow the will back,
like a tail dropped due to fright,
but it is a dopplegangland ghost of the original.
So I balanced with what I grew, but then
they took the means. Pens, pencils; they called them
gateways, tools of evil, doorways to empathy.
They could not take my mind. So they took
imagination’s fuel, cat-called it maliciously
from every room. “Hey baby, you look so good.
Hey baby, you look too good. You look like
something I could really cozy up with, like
a banned book. Hey babydoll, I can see right down
your meta. You’ve got a nice focal point and a
sweet, tight composition.”
They took everything the artists liked so well,
so no one might look at them and think
they liked it too. No one can accuse me, they said
with every gesture, naming every
expressive pleasure in each room. They plucked
walls down to dull, washed every color clear.
They told everyone to keep new ideas at least
six feet apart. They took everything but the fear.
And the fear was the new art.
Natalie Easton is a New England poet whose work has most recently appeared or is appearing in Lamp Lit, Sweet, and Jet Fuel Review. She was a contributor at Bread Loaf in 2015. Her debut chapbook, I’ll Buy You a Bird Instead, is available from Femme Salvé Books. She spends much of her time contemplating the thin veil between the ordinary and the supernatural while listening to the unsettling cries of a fox that haunts her suburban neighborhood. You can find her on Instagram at @birdinstead.
Denise Bossarte is an award-winning writer, photographer, and artist based in Texas, USA. When she’s not immersed in writing, she turns her lens to the world around her, exploring visual spaces with a keen eye for the unexpected. Her photography captures the beauty that emerges through happenstance.