You go for a drive with the top down and let the guitar sit in the passenger seat.
Make the first left, that way your destination is farther and the road to it prettier, the blossoms absurdly violet. Lose your location.
Fiddle with the radio dial. Brush past the popular music stations to the one of choice. Pause there just to adore someone’s croon.
“She was 21 when I left Galveston …” Begin thinking softly to yourself about the sadness heard deep inside the radio.
Now pick up the guitar and press your side close to hers. Begin tuning. The notes the open strings make, from the thickest to thinnest, are as follows:
E – the lowest string. The hollow Echo of a voice which speaks in an empty room.
A – she whispers sea “Anemones,” but my heart does not look up.
D – the 4th string. Dragonfly and water lily.
G – Sound becomes flesh for God to enter.
B – the Buzz and babble of billions of white bees in succulent afternoon.
E – the highest string, Exhaling verses blown back in air.
Gathering your fingers around her, reach inside her wires and steal away her heart. At last, you are playing.
I asked the artist whether she thought her painting would last forever and she said, “Probably not, but who cares? Every woman in love has the face of Mary.”
