Charcoal Portrait
by Derek Hugen
I drew a caricature of you in a sketchbook
your eyes big and dumpling
your nose stippled in a blemish
sandblasted and shy, your lips peach
hair like death, a boa constrictor wrapping venomous hearts
squeezing compositions of remorse and black thoughts
running wild with horses
and long like starry nights
I painted a sky once like Van Gogh's in The Cypress Stars
the one I stared at in the museum transfixed
until my friends pushed me on
to some other art I can't remember
later you passed me on and sat four tables away
I was a leper and I could not leap the distance
where a leaf dropped I left it
I was stupid and I knew it
and I knew the stars of heaven
were small like pinpricks in my arm
and how the scars tore against my wrist
filling five basins of liquid tributary to the Red Sea
the sweet smells of coffee rupturing like aneurisms in my brain
metaphors played out like distant sock puppets
succumbing to the numb sound
of the dumb trumpet playing taps
or when the music was dead
like Morrison on vocals
but he vocalized nothing
downed enough pills to pass out
never woke up in a drab dream like Plath in a tub
dreamt too much now in my black dream
a caricature of you in a sketchbook
your eyes dumpling | 
