People can really stare

at a painting for a long time,

Pick says.

Lisa laughs. That’s how you’re

supposed to look at art.

She points down to where

an older woman stands

by a painting of Icarus

staring out across the wide sea,

her eyes filled with tears.

See, Lisa says.

First you look at the scene,

let it hit you

however it does.

Then you look

at one thing at a time,

try to see each figure,

each shape and how it’s made.

Streaks of color,

hard strokes or washes,

the way the figures

in the painting

connect or don’t.

I look at her

examining the painting,

her face beaming with joy.

She’s where she’s supposed to be,

and I get to be here too.

We see a few people who want to buy trolls,

and we jump down from the roof

to help the trolls go home.

At the end of the night, my mom

rests in the tall peacock chair.

The first of many! she says.

It takes us the whole next day to clean it all up.

Night in the Nursery

We all sleep

in one of the old planting rooms.

It’s big enough for each

of us to have plenty of space,

high beams

and a skylight in the center.

Sunlight and moonlight

fill the room.

We make it ours for the summer.

We paint the slatted walls

with heavy acrylic,

blues, greens, yellows, and browns,

smoothed into river mud,

a thick-pasted canvas.

We hang our drawings of robots,

landscapes, and cartoon trolls,

animated versions of the sculptures,

the Lotus Keeper, the Ice Priest,

surfing in the waves

or climbing into the hills.

I hang a poster of the Big Three—

Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster,

and the Abominable Snowman—

with the word Believe.

Lisa spreads out her books

and her journals.

We build beds

from foam rubber pads,

sleeping bags, old pillows.

Sleeping mats, we call them.

This is where we want to be.

Before Picture

The Diet Book

suggests I take a before picture.

It makes sense to me,

even if I hate photos of myself.

Lisa suggests we go down to the beach,

stand near the lifeguard,

with the beach in the background.

Pick suggests we hike up a small hill.

I choose the nursery,

just to get it over with.

I stand on the deck,

the sky blue like crystal,

and the air smells

like brine.

Last night, millions of anchovies

washed onto the shore.

The beach is thick with sand crabs.

The seagulls pitch and dive

from the mountains to the beach

like I’ve never seen before,

lunging into the sand,

out of control.

I feel every cell swirling around,

my metabolism churning

starving, fighting.

So, in some moment of foolishness

or bravery or maybe both,

I step onto the deck,

take off my shirt,

and hold it over my head.

My pale skin

absorbs the naked sun.

Pick and Lisa laugh,