The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Girl Who Talked to Paintings by Shannon K. Winston

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Birdcage and Shadows

            Imogen Cunningham, photograph

Imagine your loneliness
is a room with shadows

of leaves projected onto
whitewashed walls.

It’s easier for you
to picture your feelings

cinematically, to project
them outside

of yourself and watch
them reel by.

As if they never belonged
to you, as if someone

else has trouble finding her
footing in the world.

My hands are cold,
you replied, when a man

said he loved you. Or,
I’m not sure I understand

the question, when a friend
asked what you desired most.

Project, from proicere,
to expel or abandon.

In this room, there’s an empty
birdcage with bent bars.

Did the bird, like you,
try to hurl itself out

of this domestic scene
in search of something

else to care for?
Look, in the foreground,

there’s an outline of a boy.
If you had been more

maternal, you might have
loved him—his rounded

cheeks, his soft nose.
Yes, that might have been enough.

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