Portrait Gallery: Pase Picasso Poem by Chuck Toll

The midwife of Pablo Picasso
With awareness akin to Sargasso
Thought him dead on arrival,
Not a chance of revival,
and departed the sorry fiasco.

An uncle who’d trained as physician
Saw no need to employ a mortician.
Thrusting cigar aside,
He approached the boy’s side,
Puffed a few times and-viola! -ignition.

Pablo knew from his first infant sneeze
Life was good but without guarantees,
So he was from the start
Most prolific in art,
And also in wives and amies.