She said – perversely – that she would not love me, not in this world nor the next. That she cannot accommodate loose teeth or a bum knee.
True – my teeth will fall and my good knee will soon give way like the other, but these and this won’t matter in the next world belonging to eternity.
I tell her – this world belongs to corruption and my ailing parts provide testimony. Death is part of the natural rhythm of things. If you take my hand now, we will enter incorruption together.
She is not convinced.
She has chosen that strong, hard body over there, for its pleasures. She will leave it before it shifts shape in the mirror. She will keep it until she gets her full.
I bag my bones and rattle them in her hearing. I paint a picture and then another. I save my everlasting picture for the blind. They are always hungry.
The Hungry Artist 