there was a painting on the wall in the utilityroom den

                                                          a room that to his mind should have been left outdoors if the intent from the get-go was to incorporate it into the house halfass

he had been a carpenter

it piqued him with its shoddiness the poor glazing abysmal insulation ill electrical  maybe if the subcontractors were blindworked with their eyes closed they could be proud of their effort

he didnt like the room but he had to go through it to get to the backyard

the painting on the wall he tried to allow that it was the rooms redemption  he had to try very hard

                                                                                                          but it only became harder when he learned to story of the painting

it was hung on the wall offcenter right acrylic on canvas a gloss laminate to pop the colours was applied when the family – they painted it together – decided it was finished

a gorgeously rendered blue feather like an ethereal broad spearhead floated in the upper righthand corner tantalising slight maroon ribs adorned it

his daughter painted it

                         she told him that beside it were three other feathers but they were obliterated overpainted by her zealous youngest daughter who preferred to smear paint than paint he liked to smear paint with his hands and fingers but she smeared and worked her palette to nearly black a deeply bruised pinkpurplish swirl

she consumed two of the three feathers his daughter painted

the third one her eldest daughter whited-out before she painted over it

the two had at the painting unsupervised while his daughter was helping tend to the birth of a Gypsy Vanner

her elation at the colts birth was sorely diminished when she returned home to learn her portion of the canvas was violated

it was understood the painting quartered the girls had the lower half because they were shorter

they dragged a diningroom chair to the playroom where the painting hung and stood on it

he supposed his daughter forgave them

                                           audaciously they said their mother just quit painting  She could have painted them again NO It was her portion of the canvas and you both knew it

the girls didnt like him much

he didnt treat them like children

                                   why would he he knew they were intelligent and greedy they used their childhood as leverage they seemed to forget he raised their mother who was intelligent and never greedy

the disconnect was stunning

the childrens lower half of the canvas was a fascinating display of haste and possession if they couldnt have something to themselves they despoiled it

left across from the surviving feather was a goldcoloured orb arced with cobaltblue and applegreen concentric fibers which occasioned to thicken and form ribs without rhyme or reason almost band-like as they wind outward

                                                                                                                 at its center is a hazel eye which refuses to look at the feather

towards the left edge from the orb lazes a thick graywhite snot that erodes and is heavily interspersed with bright applegreen forming a kind of optic nerve 

beneath the orb untouched unmired by the girls is a muddiedgreen anatomical heart seeded like a pomegranate fruit

the seeds the colour of a pomegranate

it is a difficult painting to say I like it

                                        he adored his daughters featherher execution liked his soninlaws make-up artists eye and small distinct portions of his granddaughters marled and suffused greed 

the painting emoted

the best thing it did was distract him from the rest of the room as he walked through it

1011,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  26  2. 20

1217,  Moanday,  31  8. 20