local_library Emily As A Smeary Place

by Darren Demaree

Published in Issue No. 227 ~ April, 2016

I wanted to paint Emily,

but I could never paint,

but I wanted to paint Emily

 

so I swerved the simple

questions about the process

& I interrogated the problem

 

of painting a beautiful woman

without being able to paint

a beautiful woman. I took

 

one canvas. I covered it from

corner to corner with dark blue,

my favorite color

 

& I called the painting “Portrait

of Emily in a Dream”. I cheated

to metaphor a present

 

for Emily. She was brutal

& frank when I gave it to her

& she hung it over our bed.

account_box More About

Darren C. Demaree is living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. He is the author of "As We Refer To Our Bodies" (2013) and "Not For Art Nor Prayer" (2014), both are forthcoming from 8th House Publishing. He is the recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations.