We are sitting at opposite ends of our kitchen table—your right profile, my left—
to the wide picture window, when one morning Edward Hopper comes knocking—
rap rap rapping his knuckles on the plate of our dusty, bug-specked window. He squints
against the glare. Let me in! he mouths. I have my paints, my canvas, my easel!
Cupping his face in his hands, he leans against the glass like a snoopy salesman.
Do we hear his plea? I’m not sure. Is he remembering the time he painted us
in a Chinese restaurant in NYC? We were so pale then, not even yet married. Background,
untested, of limited interest. All that was visible of me was my mouth, my white nose,
a red beret covered my hair. You held a cigarette and bent over an ashtray or a teacup.
Smoking or drinking, I can’t recall. Your visage in shadow, your dark jacket muted, your neck and wrists
framed in white cotton. Does Edward Hopper see our insignificance, once again, as he steps back into
the sunlight? His brown felt hat flies into the pecan with a sudden cold and dusty updraft. The sun
blanketed by an incredible gathering of grackles. The beacon of our bright yellow tablecloth
fades. Our empty salad bowls float, become fishing boats returning to harbor. You say, Mr. Hopper,
Mr. Hopper, please come in. Like a dog licking peanut butter, I try to explain perspective,
the vanishing point, here, the lines in our cheeks, across our foreheads, an apt analogy.
