Alla Prima

I woke from dreaming of the body
of a death’s-head hawkmoth broken
black on my pillowcase. I reached for my

phone without wiping my eyes.
As I checked my emails, I thought about
my melancholia and what it would feel like

if it burned white like magnesium.
I thought of a Robert Arneson sculpture
I once saw of a white wolf sitting on top

of Jackson Pollock’s head. I put my phone down
and focused my eyes on a black midrib basket
filled with white seashells. I thought about

coastal redwoods and the jagged Pacific shoreline.
I thought about the world breaking
on a slab of marble. I thought about freedom.

I know I need a haircut and a beard trim.
I tell myself I’ll try harder tomorrow.
If I attempted to paint my current mood,

it would be a Caravaggio-black calf dripping
in a maze of western goldenrods. And my self-portrait
would be a gray snail leaving a trail of

curling slime behind. I never wanted to become art:
I only wanted the world to see the animal I’ve
invented from my wet bones—each passing is a howl

unheard in my skin like smoke underwater.

Anuel Rodriguez is a Mexican-American poet living in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in DREGINALD, decomP, The Acentos Review, and elsewhere.