art building

I am familiar with the smells of congealed oil
mineral spirits ink wax dust and shavings
humid rusted screens drying turpentine and snow.
It is a thorough smell.

I still like that vinyl chair right out of The Island.
Someone's knife slipped sometime ago leaving
a small amount of foam bulging from a plastic slit
like that Italian modernist's 'paintings.'

I've spent time waiting here off and on.
It's like a friendly lobby on nowhere.
No one asks why draw the most accurate peach
or lightbulb? Why ask?

You drag the crumbling willow carbon
to feel the dry scrape against paper tooth
and to see a specific edge.
I would like to reinhabit my mind like that.