It's Still Life

Maakt Niets Uit – (It Does Not Matter)

She asks me,
what happens when someone
steals your face.

Do I become a mirror?
Am I more than pious dust,
or exotic bric-a-brac?

Am I a drip-tray colour
to coax from
an ancient alchemist’s text?

This woman, she doesn’t
mind that she’s made of crippled clay,
that there’s a hole in her neck.

It’s a cross she bears. Wears.
It wasn’t in her
blue print, so she wears blue

to mirror her powder-blue eyes.
Her obiter dictum moods.
Her blue nitrite gloves.

She keeps pets. A limpet,
a phallus banana, and fruit flies
in a 15-litre pickled egg jar.

The limpet is Dutch.

It says words she has to
look up. Like sepulchre.
And maakt niets uit.

Until recently,
there was no sun in the picture.
It was lost behind the blues.

And she’s hoping and
prospecting the bottom of the jar
for drunk fruit and merriment.

Maakt niets uit, says the limpet.

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