Masterpiece-By Katie Hedgepeth

Peering out the window, the bright sun looks

At me and blinds me while I sit in class.

Daydreaming in class, I slowly pick up

My pencil acting like I am being

Productive in class, pretending to draw.

 

Crossed legs, sitting up straight, I slowly reach

For my phone, trying to be as sneaky

As possible. Praying that my teacher

Doesn’t look at me I begin to text

Quickly, but all of the sudden I hear,

“Katie get going on your art project.”

 

As I slowly slip my phone into my

Bag, I pick up my graphite pencil and

Begin to draw the scenery that I

See out the window. Bright, big puffy clouds,

Stretched out across the horizon, big blue

Clouds like the first blanket a baby boy

Gets when he is born at the hospital.

Drawing a grassy field that is nearby,

Filling in the picture with a deep green

Pencil, the color of a Christmas tree.

Adding bright purple flowers on the crisp

Piece of paper which sits in front of me.

Imagination flowing, ideas

Coming and going as they enter my

Head. Ten minutes left in class, drawing as

Quickly as I can, hand moving in all

Directions. As the bell rings, I take a

Look at my portrait and take a deep breath,

Smiling. “Finally it’s a masterpiece.”

 

_________________________________________________________

 

Pencil-By Marianne Boruch

My drawing teacher said: Look, think, make a mark.

Look, I told myself.

And waited to be marked.

 

Clouds are white but they darken

with rain. Even a child blurs them back

to little woolies on a hillside, little

bundles without legs. Look, my teacher

would surely tell me, they’re nothing

 

like that. Like that: the lie. Like that: the poem.

She said: Respond to the heaviest part

of the figure first. Density is

form. That I keep hearing destiny

 

is not a mark of character. Like pilgrimage

once morphed to mirage in a noisy room, someone

so earnest at my ear. Then marriage slid.

Mir-aage, Mir-aage, I heard the famous poet let loose

awry into her microphone, triumphant.

 

The figure to be drawn —

not even half my age. She’s completely

emptied her face for this job of standing still an hour.

Look. Okay. But the little

 

dream in there, inside the think

that comes next. A pencil in my hand, its secret life

is charcoal, the wood already burnt,

a sacrifice.