victoria marie bee

your back is my favorite part of you.

pigment print

40 x 60 inches

2019

Purple Bathing Suit, Louise Glück

I like watching you garden 
with your back to me in your purple bathing suit: 
your back is my favorite part of you, 
the part furthest away from your mouth.

You might give some thought to that mouth. 
Also to the way you weed, breaking 
the grass off at ground level 
when you should pull it by the roots.

How many times do I have to tell you 
how the grass spreads, your little 
pile notwithstanding, in a dark mass which 
by smoothing over the surface you have finally 
fully obscured. Watching you 

stare into space in the tidy 
rows of the vegetable garden, ostensibly 
working hard while actually 
doing the worst job possible, I think

you are a small irritating purple thing 
and I would like to see you walk off the face of the earth 
because you are all that's wrong with my life 
and I need you and I claim you.