Vajava used by permission of the artist. Background photo from Bigstock. Photo manipulation by William Shunn.
(Vajava, by Michael Ernst)
O to just wash it
clean,
white
as the shelf it sits on,
that thing he’d put up
on a pedestal—
a misshapen bicycle seat,
swollen coffee bean,
muddied Shinola shine
worn at the edges
as I am tonight,
whitewash
scuffed enough
to start to see
what he had made
comely
and black
as pure as infinity
with a white
shadow
Copyright © 2019 by Rose Auslander.
