The Swan, No. 23
(Hilma af Klint)
Poem appears in the shape of a box. The text reads:A child’s crying took me out of the cube I had been looking at so intently. How many poems have started and splintered with crying. The cube that upset me. The cube has one more layer, in the middle. And two circles on the top and bottom. My mother prepared me to be afraid of everything, especially beauty, especially the cube. Because in her beginning, there was no beauty. And in her end, there was no beauty. Even when there’s no beauty, no one is in a hurry to die. People who have no beauty at the beginning have a heart in the shape of a cube. So that they have a chance at salvation. I thought my mother was excited to take that last group photo. If I look closely at the photo now, I can see how she was already gone, her eyes backlit. If I look now, I can see the shape of the cube through her gown. How her body was being held down on the earth by the weight of the cube. How so many men have tried to drown women this way. Thinking they wouldn’t float back up.
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