Another piece for my Postmodernism class inspired by a pencil portrait by Andy Warhol.
Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987)
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portrait of a woman
after Warhol
Paper is host, a reception of
lines. A body of strokes, missing
limbs, heavy with conclusion.
The expectation in her eyes,
full and shaded, is cloudy and passive
on our side of the page but
the promise of electricity’s
on the other.
We finish her,
filling in with lines and shadows
the emptiness we have been
told to recognize as faulty
or unfinished.
But here is the sort of life
that persists between
real and not real. He is telling
us something about her.
There are lines on the edges,
alone. And there are lines that
clamor over one another, weighty
and protected. But they exist with her,
for her, as her. To her, and to
you, they are not lines at all.