NOT ART BUT APERY

WILLIAM DORESKI

Because you hate photography,
which is “not art but apery,”
you’ve buried my camera in dunes
behind your house on the Cape.
You claim that only the mind
can process imagery precisely
in the four dimensions required.
Only the human brain can render
multi-point perspective
in spiritual geometry rich
enough to please the connoisseur
who flourishes in each of us.

Sea wind sculpts the dunes in shapes
too subtle to parse at a glance.
The sea itself rumples in colors
I can’t say are blue, green, or gray
and can’t affix in memory.
You with your accented speech,
your distant tinge of Russia,
insist I sketch on good rag paper
my post-impression of a lifetime
spent admiring surf and haze.

The pencil droops in my hand.
The damp air curls the paper.
You dare me to test the eye
against the curls and slope of dunes.
I fail so badly that I draw
someone’s naked torso, surely
not yours, slumping in a tub
of brackish yellow water: more
a crime scene than an artwork.
But maybe when you taunt me
with rants against technology
this is exactly what you mean.