SUSAN TERRIS
Selektion: The Painted Girl
I’m
interested in the stage of a human being where it’s not so important
whether it’s a male
or female, before we can tell any social background or
anything, it’s just
. . . abstract, almost.
—Gottfried
Helnwein
like a negative bled dark left
too long in searing light
it’s blue all
blue and
the blurred child walks
amid
a street of bodies her
scant dress white lips
pursed
listening perhaps to
the blue flute of
a distant piper
the dead in coats and scarves it’s
cold but
her feet
bare arms held
from her sides and
everything’s blue
her head injured
head gauze-wrapped no
face
blinded here but
is it worse than
the other place
where she knelt wearing
white panties dark
eyes
masked by her own
cupped hands black-and-white
here the only
blues inside where to go what
to do
but whose child is this who
will confess piper
whose child turned
monochrome how
will she
bear up pay why
must we select our
children ![](../../images/bug_print.gif)
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