Art Appraisal

by krstaten

Imagine:
You are driving
58 miles per hour
down county roads
lined with deep ditches,
lined with rows
of anxious ripples of gold,
past fields and fields
and fields, and something
hits your windshield.
you screech to a stop
and watch
spiderweb cracks
crawl through the glass.
You don’t know
if the cracks run
all the way through.

The world outside
looks divided too now,
cracks through trees,
and cracks through fields
and fields and fields,
yawning sky cleaved
into portions.
The more you drive
the further the cracks’
fingers will reach
and you do not dare
to trace them
with your own fingers
lest you should bleed.

No fool will look
at the picture
these cracks
manufactured
and cry,
“A mosaic!”
“A masterpiece!”
No fool will tell you
to just keep
driving
and promise that
the fissures in your vision
will become beautiful.
They will say it can
and should be helped.

Why do you tell me,
then,
that my brokenness
is beauty?
Why do you insist
that if I just keep
driving
and ignore the fissures
my vision will become art?
Yet at the same time
you do not dare
to touch me
with your own fingers
lest you should bleed.