after Marisol

The artist misses her dead mother. The artist keeps her hair
out of her eyes so as not to mistake you for her dead mother. 

She presents a set of selves, tactically still. Colored like carousels. 

In a glamorous magazine Gloria Steinem writes, Food doesn’t concern her. 

I hear a POP! when looking at the mustard yellow dress, 
the mustard yellow coat and blouse. 

•

Meat and peas, pigeon grey and estranged in aluminum trays.
The insignificant images are handled insignificantly. 

A plaque says the artist’s use of primary colors is meant to suggest
something about addition and subtraction. 

Like when Pessoa said, I multiplied myself to feel myself. 

We want to believe they’re on good terms, but 
in actuality there’s little chatter between the selves.

They’re never really listening, even when you’re near.

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Author’s Commentary:

“There comes a point when you start asking, ‘Who am I?’ I was trying to find out through my sculpture. That’s why I made all those masks . . . Every time I would take a cast of my face, it came out different. You have a million faces . . . it’s spooky.” —Marisol (1930–2016)

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(Note: Marisol’s Dinner Date, 1963 is still in the public domain, which is why the image for this piece is a QR code that links to the photograph.)