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The Rorschach
"For beauty is nothing
but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to
endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains
to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Moses parting the Red Sea
A man slinking away from a woman
Guilty of some unspeakable horror
Woman reposing on a sofa
Woman, all of her, everywhere---
A Jackson Pollock peek-a-boo bursting
From the sun
From the shades of vitriol
From a slow sucking beetle hard wired to the brain
Its focus stuttering and vacant
An early flower arcing upright to the sun
Three girls offering roses to the Virgin de Guadelupe.
All in all, the psychotherapist had said,
Something to the effect of Not Too Bad
Likening the results to the x-ray of a leg
Nothing was broken
Apparently
Maybe just a sprain.
“A sprain?” you’d asked
“A pronounced sprain,” he’d been careful to add.
He’d lit a cigarette then
You had asked him for a smoke;
He seemed annoyed
You failed him in the Generosity Test.
Leaving his office, walking out into the brilliant Austin
Sun, you thought, What was his trade, anyway?
Trafficking in dense echoes and a desire
So encompassing it branded you a gimp
All of 21, you knew yourself to be more than that
You knew beauty when you saw it
And you had seen it plain.
Julie Finch lives in Houston, Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin where she majored in communications, minored in English. She worked for many years as an advertising copywriter. Today, she makes a living in the staffing industry, and writes as often as she can. Some of her favorite writers include Rainer Maria Rilke, Charles Bukowski, Mary Oliver, Andrew Holleran, Edmund White and many others. Her work has been published by Blazevox, ditch, and now, Agave Magazine. She reveres poetry, and believes it can save a life.
Email: Julie Finch
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