You sent me the self-portrait in a card once, maybe 1980.
You are lying on your stomach, propped up on your elbows,
a book open before you, as you stare out a set of floor-to-ceiling French windows.
Your cat sits to left of you, and your legs point toward the foot of your bed, crossed.
You are dressed in a long-sleeve shirt and blue jeans.
Everything is blue, drawn in blue pen, you, famously, in your blue pen period.
I’ve lost it, a failed curator, the original gone forever.
Each time I picture your drawing, however, I can redraw it.
Each time it is nearly the same, a passable reproduction of your masterpiece.
Each time I play a game, change the book from German, to physics, to Shakespeare.
Each time I draw it, I render you, especially, with great care.
I trace the blue lines of you over and over in my mind.
And the cat.
I make very sure I get your blue cat right, too.
Lanning Lee 