Kelly Kanayama - One Poem

The Virgin Mary Painter


By the time the Virgin Mary painter
came down with her guitar from Alaska,
Mrs. K had already been to see
Mr. Pacheco with the 1960’s walk-up
and ponytail who said in a past life,
she’d been a stage parent like Leopold Mozart
or Gypsy Rose Lee: he saw footlights,
a frightened prodigy in his third eye, a mother

crying in the other two. Her son had started
TV that year, shedding glasses and reserve
for jingles, close-ups, sports drinks
proffered by nameless cyclists. (In real life,
she told him on set, don’t ever
take drinks from strangers.)
                                                        A phone psychic
had already suggested Jesus. Mrs. K found

the painter instead at the Wellness Centre
for one night only, artwork in tow,
guitar blessedly put down after a ballad
on the magic of you. This picture
of the Virgin, said the painter, hid
a real healing heartbeat. The Virgin’s arms

held nothing but a background
too light to be sky. Mrs. K volunteered
to touch the canvas breast, felt blood
moving in her own fingertips.