Interview of a Self-Portrait

What's happened is that I've become all art,
a form to breathe a face into the air
of which I am made, of which I am only part.
Some lovers, in return for a heart
give a hollow, and promise a heart is there.
What's happened is that I've become all art,
a painting torn too hastily apart,
whose brilliant maker with a brilliant flare,
of which I am made, of which I am only part,
no sooner is finished but hates what at the start
he loved.
                But once, he traced my neck and brushed my hair:
                what's happened is that I've become all art.

If I had known that I would be scarred
by his caprice, his oil-paint savoir-faire,
of which I am made, of which I am only part,

I wouldn’t have wished or listened quite as hard,
for words he whispered nightly in my ear:
"what's happened is that I've become all art,
of which I am made, of which I am only part."


William Glass