"Art Therapy"

          II

     We follow our own version of Art Therapy
     camaraderie at the art gallery
     how long Susan lasts
     before fatigue gives her marble statue feet
     how many floors before coffee
     one and then two
     how long before she goes home,
     head by Picasso, and passes out
     and for how Modigliani long?
     improvements fine as brush-strokes

     in Ken Lum’s Mirror Maze
     Susan panics I guide her out
     having done it before
     mirrors refract
     cunning
     trickery
     the numbers of the twelve symptoms
     of clinical depression go backwards
     disorienting
     like the incomprehensible problems of math in junior high
     if Susan can paint a portrait in sixty seconds
     how soon completed if Crystal joins?
     (if Gillian, also?)

     assured, Susan walks ahead and smacks into glass
     (I feel alone in the world)
     I chortle
     she, pained surprise fleeing,
     snickers back
     with her
     not at her
     laugh shatters ricochets

     outside we see 
     the piece takes up little space
     but we don’t feel it
     cognitive dissociation
     the trick: if you see yourself, don’t go
     it is mirror, not passageway
     cunning threshold
     an odd unlearning
     reflection gets you nowhere
     (I can’t sleep at night)

     she puts a finger in my belt loop follows slowly
     not the blind leading the blind
     (I have no friends)
     we belie the text above us
     deaf to the impregnations
     to the words of logic in our heads
     ears fill with fluid
     in this glinting hard-edged place
     faint signs of the sea
     rebirth, recovery