Essie's Self-Portrait

Immortalized in acrylic before you evaporated as quickly as the paint dried in the autumn sunset, you stuck yourself in a frame in my mind’s museum. Rendered motionless by the inherent motionlessness of color on canvas, your feet propped precariously on our velvet footstool, you toss glances from your painted eyes, like roses from our balcony. You occupy the headspace above the headboard, the frame’s edge almost skimming the ceiling, the hem of your evening gown just missing the floor. In this endless expanse of time, stretching out like a cornfield after a harvest, I must wait for the autumn sunset. I sit on my canvas, drying like a corn husk left in the heat, the water of my life vanishing into the motionless silence.