She Paints Herself into a Corner

She takes a crayon to the backs
of envelopes, to the cardboard
from laundered shirts. She steals India
ink and black velvet for angry clowns
and the many faces of Elvis. Worked-over
images soon overflow the closets, tumble
into the hall. Stacked to the ceiling, there
is no room for light to enter, so the painter
moves over the dark stained floor like a shadow,
back and forth and back again—until she falls
out of her own frame of reference, still believing
in what the day can do.