Self-portrait

On this bright, bright day

a million eyes you cannot see

look into yours. The mirror

in which you observe yourself

contains the gaze of strangers

behind your brown eyes. 

It hides more than it reveals.

Do you imagine the sum

of all those future moments

when someone pauses before your picture,

forms the wrong impression,

and forgets it straight away

as they move on to the next,

can contain in the overlap of all its errors

a single second of what it means to be you?

Even now those seconds contain centuries?

You sit naked and alone,

on this bright, bright day,

living the story of rejection,

persecution, suicide, and obscurity

we can find out all about

if we take an interest,

and still, you find the generosity

to attempt to share this moment of it

despite it all, and if you fail

so do all of us.

(A response to the self-portrait painted by Anita Rée in 1930, currently on display in the Hamburger Kunsthalle)