Still Life

The ocean can be so trite.
How can one escape wanting and failing to describe and so capture the feinting
one-two
              punch of childhood?
I enjoy cranking up the heat in winter.
I like arrays, silhouettes.
A lovely day does not leave me distressed, depressed.
The nice watercolor teacher told me: less, less.
Stop with a curved path, the gesture of a bird.

Patty Seyburn has published three books of poems: Hilarity (New Issues Press, 2009), Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002), and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998). Her poems have recently been published in Boston Review, DIAGRAM, and Hotel Amerika. She is an associate professor at California State University, Long Beach and co-editor of POOL: A Journal of Poetry.

*Photo courtesy of Floating Ink.
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