Burnt Effigy Poem by Patti Masterman

If we set the old Master's paintings ablaze
Just for a minute; a few micro-seconds,
The paint liquifies, sends up it's medicinal scent;
Lazuline blue and lead white,
Coloring the smoke lent to heaven,
Pulling the soul from out the old vellums;
Freeing the subjects from their long, indentured service.
Smoking, it leaves a paint dotted canvas behind,
Like a dot to dot, of some strangely familiar drawing,
The edges curling inward, like a dying flower at dusk.