HAUNCH OF PLUM

So to be one with those masters, I riffle the Manet catalogue monumental
as last exhibits are, habit crippled by insurance on slashed paintings, Rembrandt up there
on the index of hardness the image physically resisting – Turner by it not
mattering if varnish yellows, dirt settling, the whole aging as if slowly rotating
or a cheese in that wonderful muslin, waxed rind on a Bel Paese, limit on Wensleydale
that on buttered cracker is nearly butter. . .that something like the tablecloth wrapped it,
significantly nonedible. One could put a sheet of linoleum down under an electric chair
with the same effect, or press plastic wood into a door lock. Futures tell us
how to live in 1920, cutout chrome around the glass bowl for our grapefruit
(not then ruby quite unsweet) coffee from Havana, fishknife on kipper. These all
translated to emblems, round Fiesta jugs in the kitchen only and toast crumbs go with dust, to dust.
That the sherbet glass or shrimp bowl had no relation to the metal or the shaved ice made the period comic
or like marbles in a suede bag too fine for them, are marbles.

12.8.84