Under the Porchlight

by  Sam Baker 

Art by Hyeseon Kim

I used to be a painter

when ‘being’ wasn’t yet obligatory,

clay sculptures in a kiln,

and the words my mother pressed into my forehead

before she turned out the lights each night.             

I used to paint things

before colors were

bins of silk ribbons and plastic trophies

collecting dust in my closet.

Those shimmering colors were unbreakable,

yet I’d snap crayola by the box, put faces to rocks,

and no one asked me to give them names.

I used to be a painter

of stick figures and movie endings told

from droughted bristles I forgot to wash.

And I could have bought more;

I could have been a painter;

I could have just gone to the store,

but I would’ve had to walk

across the sidewalk chalk

I can’t talk to anymore.

Listen, I used to be a painter,

but I think everyone can say that,

before our paintings were the curbside

and we had somewhere to be.

I was a lot of things

when I wasn’t told to be someone.

I used to be origami and smiling at anyone                “just because.”

I was riding round trips in paper planes,

writing condensation love stories ‘til they melted down the window panes.

Listen, or perhaps don’t listen at all because I never did.

But I used to be a painter

before that had to mean a lot of things. 

I’d paint questions and leave the rest to the canvas,

like how to make oats with mom

or the reasons Dorothy left Kansas,

and Painter, I still remember

when you’d texturize the moon,

fill it in with rug burns and static on birthday balloons.

Painting was always stopping long enough

to forget about time

until Grandpa’s western rocking chair

started sounding like a pendulum to you.

He’d fill it up with boot scoot tunes

as you oiled your name into the wood,

sprawling in the deck splinters,

listening to his weathering winters

you still see in his face.

You haven’t touched that floor in years.

I don’t recall when you became so afraid to bleed.

Hyeseon Kim, Strawberries Dipped in Chocolate, acrylic

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