Dale Champlin, Ghost Dog, Collage, 2021
Defense Against the Black Arts
i.
These are the facts.
Something came from what we perceive to be nothing.
Nothing is nil, cool. Something is warm, here.
The bridge between buckles.
Sometimes this is also true.
Something is terrifying as hell.
Something is a bolus-of-bats with fangs
being flung at us up through our medulla oblongatas.
What’s throwing it?
We look down, see our own dumb hands,
headless roosters
ii.
This is also true, though, I think, maybe, sometimes.
There is no such thing as nothing.
iii.
Vermillion, veridian.
They get to know us at the Buck or Two.
Sap green, burnt siena.
The aisles are a refreshment of order, of things.
Note books, sketch books, reams of paper, brushes.
Phthalocyanine green, phthalocyanine blue.
Carmine, crimson, cadmium yellow.
Canvases, canvases, canvases.
Lamp black. Mars black. Iridescent Graphite.
(Only sometimes, only sometimes.)
Let us return safely to the ochres.
iv.
You pour over canvases.
I close my eyes,
rest
for a moment or two.
____________________
Erin Wilson