Starlight, 1962

Suppose the stars are just our grief reflected back to us, proof that grief sometimes forgets its source, that it can find dead things no matter how distant. Everyone arrives one day and asks,

is this it

? And the stars answer back with more stars. I wonder if Agnes started at the bottom or at the top, if she went left to right or right to left. There's no use in wondering if the canvas was on the floor or on a table. To ask questions is to be distracted by point of view. Point of view has a terrible memory. I've looked at photos scrolling up and over, zooming in and out, and realize it is not love I want, just the ability to zoom back out. A woman loses herself when she can no longer zoom out. Agnes knew that love exists because of the distance of starlight. That desire is the only thing with nerve endings. That it drips. That it dries faster in the desert. She knew to paint it vertically but to hang it horizontally.