Guernica, by Madeleine Cravens

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1937

Guernica
 
The eye works by adjustment. In the museum 
the eye presents fruit bowls unnervingly still.
 
Platforms and shadows, the eye aligns 
colours, the eye dreams a unified field. 
 
Like a great car mirror 
how the eye has cavorted.
 
The eye has seen gothic chapels, the eye 
has seen Guernica, the woman in flames,
 
the agonized horse. We were inside
the Reina Sofia. You stood behind me
 
in front of the painting. 
An object refracted
 
appears falsely close. Though
one could rip out the cornea. 
 
Sever the optical stalk. 
No twisted image, only pure sight 
 
in the white room, sight 
and the dissolution of all other ability.

Madeleine Cravens

Madeleine Cravens lives in New York. She attended Oberlin College, where she studied political science and creative writing. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Best of the Net 2014, the Adroit Journal and IMAGE journal