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Charlotte Friedman

Alams for Cleaning Out the Painter’s House

by Charlotte Friedman

May 2021

with a broomin this room
I push cigaretteswe sang ballads
into the cornervoices blended

the wind liftsnot your enemy
inked scrapsnot your good girl
of yellow traceonly your daughter

tubes of paint visit me tonight
ooze over burnersI want to taste color
a strange palettein my dreams

red and forgotten200 paintings
the coffee pot lightyour vision
holds steadyI am breathless

I scrub the wallssmell of spirits
bucket of bleachin my hair
still a stale smellmy throat

dragged five tonsyour final show
from the basementopens the night
unbearable weightbefore you died

two grenadesyour life
one under each arma brief visit
that’s how I want to gocoffee & a cigarette

from your drawerI’d like to paint
I lift a pistola painting call it
slick in my handsWings at Rest


Charlotte Friedman is a poet and memoirist, and author of The Girl Pages: A Handbook of Resources for Strong, Confident, Creative Girls (Hyperion). She teaches Narrative Medicine in the English Department at Barnard College. Her poetry has been published in Light, Connecticut River Review, Intima, Unearthed, and elsewhere.

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