blindness.

this is my favorite painting from esao andrews' new show 'nowhere' currently up at thinkspace gallery. i love how the bat's body is like an extra membrane or piece of velvet wrapped around her face and eyes, losing itself in her hair. i think i feel this way often, shrouded by something dangerous and heady. something that lives in the darkness. anyway, i had a chance to stop by esao's studio before he shipped the work off. take a peek at the visit over at hi-fructose here.


Bat

His awful skin
stretched out by some tradesman
is like my skin, here between my fingers,
a kind of webbing, a kind of frog.
Surely when first born my face was this tiny
and before I was born surely I could fly.
Not well, mind you, only a veil of skin
from my arms to my waist.
I flew at night, too. Not to be seen
for if I were I'd be taken down.
In August perhaps as the trees rose to the stars
I have flown from leaf to leaf in the thick dark.
If you had caught me with your flashlight
you would have seen a pink corpse with wings,
out, out, from her mother's belly, all furry
and hoarse skimming over the houses, the armies.
That's why the dogs of your house sniff me.
They know I'm something to be caught
somewhere in the cemetery hanging upside down
like a misshapen udder.

-Anne Sexton