Bethany Beach and the Artist's Foot

In the foreground you painted this painting
lying flat on the painted ground
(where you painted it)
beside your sandaled foot, but not enough
of your painted painting shows to show,
within it, your painting's painted painting
with, beside it, the painted painting
of your painted foot, which is fortunate,

since, caught in that vertiginous spiral,
you might be there still, in the mythical
innermost painting, trying to extricate
your foot, frame by frame, forever.

As it is, you are probably here with us,
looking over our shoulders (now included
in this poem's painting) down the road
past dwindling bungalows into a hazy distance

that lies flat against the canvas, as flatly
lies upon our unquestioning retinae,
lie within lie, this distance we make,
putting into it, almost inextricably,
our miles, our yards, our feet.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002