Alex Stolis

IF I WERE A PAINTER

My fingers are wet with green and blue, you sit
in a small kitchen in Oregon, wonder at the curve
of the sky, your hands turn to watercolor, bottom lip
trembles; death becomes a pastel streak on linoleum floor.
 
I want to wash your feet, kiss the small of your back
and wait until the right song comes on the radio; wait
all night, all the next day and then walk to the corner
of Lake and Chicago, listen as you tell me how Surfer Rosa
 
is far superior to Trompe Le Monde-- I imagine the stars
are paper cuts, imagine the last few weeks a ceramic bowl
of fruit; a still life that hangs in a library or doctors office—
children saying look, a winged horse is falling from the sky.

Alex Stolis is from Minneapolis, Minnesota.