Ma says this is a woman collapsing into a woman collapsing into a background of elegant brushstrokes divined by some god or goddess possessed by a deep love for Jupiter. For real. This is what ma said between sips of gin.
This is what ma looks like divined by Toulouse Lautrec.
This is a lyrical representation of what ma and I would look like if we were the subject of art and not the creators of mayhem and mini murders. I’ve always been a fiery redhead in my head.
Ma said these two look like fools beneath umbrellas beneath the unbearable beauty of the mid day sun.
When ma saw the Chagall windows, she shut the fuck up. She bent down on one knee like she was a knight in shiny pink lipstick and prayed. She prayed for the advent of sun. She prayed for the blue and the blues. She lifted her head up as if she were a marionette pulled by an almost invisible string. Blue, she said, belongs to god and windows.
Between us, ma and I understood the power of art and factless wonders like love and Alzheimer’s. We went down to the lover level because the lower level is a level we hope to never return. True love, ma said, is subterranean and foundational. It’s what stabilizes the whole wide world. It’s what normalizes the logic of sequined pants and the smile of a long loved friend.
