Imitation 4 By Natalie Frenette

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.

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Imitation 4

Drawing Upside Down

By Natalie Frenette

I remember the day in school, fourth grade,

Our morning assignment was on the board.

The overhead projector shining bright

“Good morning class!” Said the note at the top.

“Draw what you see, only focus on lines.” 

An upside down seal was what I could see.

I didn’t understand the point of this 

But I went along with it anyways.

So I started drawing lines. Back and forth.

It looked like nothing to first start out with.

Lines and more lines, connected together.

It was starting to make sense all these lines.

I could see it coming together now.

The best drawing I think I ever did.

An upside down seal, just like the picture.

Who knew drawing upside down worked this well?

That day in school was a very good day.

I felt like an artist, just discovered.

The one I knew was always inside me.

I never actually finished it all

That picture of a seal by the water.

My first real drawing that I ever did.

That day in fourth grade, the upside down seal.

I’ll never forget that one day in school

Upside down thinking, who knew, it was cool.

It wasn’t just drawing, it was for life. 

Baby steps, baby steps, one at a time.

Concentrate on lines and not the whole thing.

It might look like nothing but lines at first,

But when you finish, the picture is clear.