For my wife, Sandra (1942-2013)
We hung Picasso’s sketch up on the wall
we hung it on a coat hook, all we had
for temporary hanging, and although we knew
our lifetime’s wages couldn’t buy the like.
we hung it like some paint by number trash
or the scrawl of someone’s child, framed for a joke,
or out of overblown parental pride.
You might have thought
it was a yard sale purchase someone hung,
to show their shopping acumen or get a price
a little better than the one they paid.
A half a dozen fat and naked men,
some fallen down, and some about to fall,
all drunk on wine or on despair;
what might have been a fire on a beach
in some place where drunk men stand up and dance
when suicide’s no option, or when loss
makes going backward just as good as going on.
I thought how much you loved Picasso and I took
a photo with my phone in wretched light
hoping enough of it might show to bring
that smile Picasso even couldn’t paint,
forgetting in my haste you’d never see
another picture that I took for you.
Not then, not ever in this world.
And then I knew
why Picasso drew the way he drew
those sad men dancing and they way they danced.
©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS
William John Watkins 