What Remains, by Melanie Figg

Portrait of a Boy, attributed to James B. Read (USA), 1856.

What Remains

​I  lost  my  shame   in  his  studio,  I   felt  the  last  of   it   ease  away.
His constant staring made  me lighter, gave me a sort of peace. They
always said  I’d be forgiven  on the other side. I expected halos, or  a
list that  would be  torn in half  then  burned.  Not  those  hands  with
flecks of colour (my colour). Not that steady gaze. I know I made him
uncomfortable: cold  as  I  was and  staring back.  I  would  hear  him
awake at  night, startled  to see me  still lying on the table.  Strange to
enter his  dreams  that  way.  I  never  meant to, never  meant to walk
these  marble  halls, to  have  stayed  so long. Some  people stop and
look  as  closely  as  he  did,  a  sort  of  memorizing.  I  thought  death
would   be   a   place   where  no   one  saw   me  anymore.  But  I  am
everywhere, everywhere.

Melanie Figg

This painting is a posthumous mourning portrait, and the boy is rumoured to haunt the Minneapolis Institute of Arts where the painting hangs.
Melanie Figg is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. Her chapbook, Hurry, Love, was printed in standard and fine art editions with paper artist Doug Abbott (Fuori Editions). She has won many awards for her poetry including grants from the McKnight and Jerome Foundations and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County. With an MFA in Poetry, her poems, essays and reviews have been published in dozens of literary journals including The Iowa Review, LIT, Colorado Review and others. She curates Literary Art Tours in DC galleries (aWashington Post Editor’s Pick), and teaches and coaches writers in community art centers and privately. www.melaniefigg.net