“This is a story about magical thinking. About coincidence and manifestation.”

                                Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

This is the story of the poem
I wrote for my Aunt Anne
after I noticed a new painting 
in her renovated kitchen

Romaine Lettuce, the painting’s called
though I didn’t know it 
at the time, still life
of a summer harvest

You can imagine 
soft white curtains 
moving gently, morning light 
through an open window

It’s a Tantillo, she said –
I love that painting, although it’s just
a page torn from a magazine
set in an expensive frame

I wrote the poem for her
before she knew she was dying,
before I knew. Wrote it because
she was a poet in search of answers

I wrote a poem for her
about a painting

That poem doesn’t matter now

What matters is what happened next

This is a story about magical thinking. About coincidence and manifestation.

Her kids held an estate sale when she died
when it was over, they gave me a key
so I could walk through the house
one more time, one last time

The house was nearly empty
except for her spirit. Could I feel her there?
Reader, I could. In the corner, propped on a table
lone painting, familiar in its silver frame, waiting just for me