This Poem is Not About Painting
J. A. Lane
Poetry
The headlines are already painted with the colors of
yesterday. We’ll navigate, add a second coat, cover the holes
and chips; we allow ourselves to imagine they never existed.
Brush strokes, coat after thickening coat, blotting out the
imperfections simply so we don’t have to acknowledge that we
never did anything less than perfect.
The myth of the swan song only makes us love it more.
Another crack noticed. Another opportunity to wipe out
sufficient normalcy. Even painters grow tired.
J. A. Lane is a husband, father, poet, and playwright whose work focuses on examining themes of identity, memory, faith, and the human condition. His debut poetry collection We Can’t Program the Sun (Bottlecap Press) is out now, and his work has been published in The Writing Disorder, Coalition Works, JMWW, As Surely as the Sun, Creative Colloquy, and Eunoia Review. Lane is an MFA candidate at Augsburg University and lives in the Pacific Northwest.