SAPPHO COMMENTS ON AN EXHIBITION OF EXPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPES

 

Then, she says, a penis is needed, female

artists almost always can use one, taking

charge with tools like brushes and palette knives to

          build up their pictures,

 

bold as men are, spraying great skeins of yellow,

cobalt blue, and crimson across the canvas,

rage or quiet made at their will, exploding

          measures of failure,

 

risking planes, dissolving full spaces, Bluemner

hurling turquoise clouds on a purple field as

blackbirds wheel in formation, Hartley sculpting

          skies out of granite,

 

oil as cloud made palpable, air as breathless

form accreting mass in its own defense while

ends begin and boundaries disappear.

          This is how men die.

 

Now, she says, O'Keeffe is my point, consigned to

desiccated bones smoother than silk, unblemished

petals, lilies swollen in heat, faint tensions

          vectored through tunnels,

 

warm vaginas, moisture of vulvas, furtive

stand-ins, meanings plain as your face: a woman

minus penis making art with her body,

          trapped in her body.