Linda 01
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The Poem
Linda 01
They tore her from the magazinethe way you tear anything beautiful from its context —cleanly, without asking,with the complete confidence of someonewho believes the image is the whole of it.
It isn’t. It never was.
She is in bed.The first layer — the private one,the one the magazine never got to,the teal and orange roomthat belongs to her and no one else.
The phone is yellow.The phone is hers.It will ring when she decides and not before.
Above the bed, the Madonna —the oldest image of a woman reduced to function,to the sacred purpose of holding another.
One woman to another
And directly below itshe sits in her superhero suitgiving peace signs with both handswith the energy of a womanwho has been the image long enoughto know the image is not the woman.
The mask is not a disguise.The face they shot and tore and kept —that was the disguise.
Not a disguise
This —the suit, the peace signs, the yellow phone,the warm lamp, the room finally hers —this is Linda.All the layers. At once.
We are not what we look like.We are the mask we put onwhen the magazine has put itself awayand the room is oursand we can finally beevery complicated layered true thing we actually are.
She is three pieces.This is the first.
The Madonna watches from abovenot with judgmentbut with the recognition of one woman to another —I know, she says. They reduced me too.
Wear the mask.
Be all of it.
It was always all of it.