Portrait Gallery
From Wikipen
The portrait hung on my wall for years—
a ballerina in a perfect arabesque.
She gave it to me when I was a little girl
and still fancied myself in satin pointe shoes
before dropping off to sleep.
It became one of many. Whenever I visited,
another painting joined me on the return trip:
mementos from a foreign land
where I enjoyed my visit,
but never got close enough to know the people.
I might have been staring at my portrait gallery
when my great-grandmother fell asleep,
never to paint another picture,
and the journey to her house was no longer a country vacation
but a survey of the wreckage following a hurricane.
The paintings returned home with me—
not as foster children, but as orphans.
They had nowhere else to go.
Many years faded into the distance
with many houses that never had time to become home
where a cardboard box was my closet,
and the pictures were crated more often than not.
This time, new paneling in the bedroom
and no picture-hanger holes allowed.
The portraits remained in the box,
but enough time had passed
that I barely felt a sting to put them away.
