I am the painting

Lying, face downwards,
There’s water coming, rain flowing
From my nose and other orifices in my head.
Over my arms, my fingers, onto the ground.
I am a painting, a tree,
Black and white,
Branches, twigs, black like cinders,
Charred limbs,
I am the tree.
Lying,
The downed sailor,
Life in chaos;
Resurrected, Jesus,
The Chosen One, anointed, suffering,
My Jewish ancestors, the faces of the holocaust,
My cousins, dead in Auschwitz,
The tree,
The pear tree, 9/11, cudgelled, burnt.
I have to suffer to come back,
History re-created.
My father, the artist,
Painting to distract himself, forget.
He let me be.
My veins are drying up,
My mouth, it cannot speak;
I must not speak though I must be.
From the old, black paint, diluted now, liquid once more,
Comes a new, real work of art,
Inside out,
A blue print once.
First the paint, then the figure,
First thick, then thin,
Until it starts to flow once more.
“This is beautiful,” they said, “the most beautiful painting.”
Mon semblable, mon hypocrite voyeur,
I am just an instrument, a tool,
A figure head, a fool,
Maybe,
Where the past and present meet.
Thank you, Father.