"Dreaming with Picasso," an ekphrastic series of poems by Grace Lynn

Picasso Defeats Pythagoras, and I Dream as Marie, Not as Picasso’s “Golden Muse”

Le Rêve by Pablo Picasso, 1932.

I Dream as Marie, Not as Picasso’s “Golden Muse”

Inspired by Picasso’s The Dream
 
Browsing Galleries Lafayette, I stumble
upon you, desperate to paint my 17-year-old
face with your 45-year-old fingers. Brushstrokes
became covert sex. Divide my body in two, half
awake, half asleep in clashing color. In-between 
haze, bumping reality into fantasy. Head tipping 
to the right of my reclining body. You abuse me 
into a museum of your lust—  
my face a foxhole 
for your erection, my muted green dress straps droop
like wilting leaves to expose
my right nipple. What games
you play, loosening hinges of tulle I double checked 
were fastened like the lock on my diary. Intertwined 
fingers a ‘v’ to misplace 
my vagina in my hands. Legs flutter open 
slightly to assemble flirtatious 
lips. You’re getting pretty
good at failing to see me as I am— 
tranquil in my soft smile. Lax muscles tuned
as Yo-Yo Ma’s strings to slouch. Behind me,
panels of forest. To the right, a curtain 
of red squares that might be flowers. I am done 
guessing what Picasso sees. Give me back 
my body, my introspection 
my mother’s meiosis manufactured 
into me. Give me back my smooth 
lines, my pastel colors, my necklace 
beaded in yellows and reds, the easy curves 
of my neck. I want my spine, my undivided 
self arcing into the sweet river of dreams.   
 

Portrait of Dora Maar by Pablo Picasso, 1937

Picasso Defeats Pythagoras

	Inspired by Picasso’s Dora Maar Seated

Breasts a bouquet
of black lines.

Arms a flatland blurring
into a cedar chair.

Skirt a siren red triangle
of furniture.

I shop for trigonometries
of dresses that scream.

I never forget
to press mute. I play

hide & seek despite my growing
age. I don’t care about numbers.

My doppelgänger
nose points at you

but doesn’t smell
sweat or aftershave.

It’s an island, an archipelago,
skidding off the mainstream.

I collect torso
dyslexias. Go ahead,

swallow LSD,
gin on the rocks,

Tilt-A-Whorl vertigo
or prescriptions pills

of placebo. It’s all the same
difference. Yes, I refuse

to cut my nails. I like them
dangerously sharp, polished

red deaths against
the soft curl

of my rubicund cheek.
What madness

to desire critique.
I am sphere

& acute angle, lush
& severe. A oneness

of contradiction,
profile & outward

gaze, a face
testing color— the hiccup

where without is
within, airbrushed eyelash

stalemate— one flutters
this way, the other that.

You can’t catch me
in a clause, an em dash snagging

solutions to X, Y, Z
polynomial me.

Maybe the body
isn’t a problem

to be solved. Call me
Prokofiev, not Pythagoras.

I am a color-wheel
of voltas, Escher staircases

ascended to arrive
in the billiards room

of a basement, a pool
ball collision

of reason. Abracadabra
I disappear

right when you suspect
you find me. My hypotenuse

is not opposed
to a right angle. I like the world

wrong, my missing sides
missing. Now it’s time

to put aside your TI-89.

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Grace is an emerging painter who lives with a chronic illness and is working on her first collection of poetry. Her work explores the intersections between the natural world, art and disability. In her spare time, Grace enjoys listening to Bob Dylan, reading suspense novels and exploring absurd angles of art history.

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