Telepathy, and: Riddle, and: American Portrait

Abstract

Telepathy, and: Riddle, and: American Portrait Derrick Austin (bio) Telepathy You finally say,I want to knowwhat a mind is, what it looks likebehind the eyes.It’s not a room every time. Voices,projectionsof colored lights: a showerof diamonds, a butterfly,a red feather— those are memories.But there’s a crying figurein your thoughts. Seeing her is like stumblingupon a statueof an allegory whose name is lost.I only knowwhat you know. [End Page 29] Riddle My robesmells of ash. I scour windowswith sand. Saturnine,I roam odd corridors. I can makea diabolic sound. I’ll never touchthe bottom of the sea. Ride?I ride. Am ridden, too. Who am Iwith my clean white teeth? [End Page 30] American Portrait Yesterday, in a midwestern city,police fired tear gas at Black picketers.I click a photo of a molten sunsetin Boston: the sky, hazy because of fires to the north,south, and east of Oakland. I keep scrollingpast ads and mapswaiting for the train at 12th Streetuntil the bad signal relieves my attention.Teens in punk-lite plaids film each otherdancing under an alcove.The rest of us stare down the tunnel a pigeon panics in.At the de Young Museum, I spend a long timewith Mary Cassatt’s portrait of her mother.In her white shawl and black gown, she is severe as a judge(the modeling of her face and hands, in particular,add to the weightiness). Is that a mirroror window? A framed map?The bureau mingles with the porous vase.I’m taken by the flowers behind her headblurring as if seen through tears,a frenzy of brushstrokes.Red. Cream. Violet. Green.They still grip me when I step outsideand smell smoke again. [End Page 31] Derrick Austin derrick austin is the author of Tenderness (boa Editions, 2021) and Trouble the Water (boa Editions, 2016). His first chapbook, Black Sand, is recently out from Foundlings Press. He is a 2022–2023 Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholar. Copyright © 2022 Derrick Austin