by Yael Herzog
I
Avner said okay stop now.
He said look at what you made. Matisse said this is when our work is best
before we go on into it and fix it.
He said this is when it’s still alive. He said, we better not fall in love with it now.
He said that soon we’ll stop and notice that we’ve ruined it all.
Like the movement and all the mistakes and the rawness.
He said that’s okay to lose it all.
He said just remember that it was like this once, and then it will be okay to lose it all.
II
The body hadn’t held itself the way we’d hoped it would.
A collapse but not destroyed, he said, and he was right. The chest
was sitting there beside the legs, waiting.
Matisse had said I would never get it back.
I built it so the chest was shooting forwards, something
that could never be but was. Lean into
nothing, upwards, contorted. He said
stop. He said remember and he said don’t
fall in love and he said, lose it all.
Yael Herzog is an MFA candidate at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She is the recipient of the 2017 Andrea Moriah Poetry Prize. Her poetry has previously appeared in Eclectica Magazine.