Fingerpainting A Masterpiece Poem by Bryan Corbett

Picasso is in the Louvre
Rembrandt, the Guggenheim
Da Vinci lives at the Getty
van Gogh, the Courtauld
Amelia is on my refrigerator

Amelia?
my five-year-old niece
lives in Cleveland with her mom and dad
her kindergarten class learned
to finger-paint just last week
my sister sent the painting
to my home in Los Angeles

the color choice is all wrong
the figures are disproportioned
the names above the figures are mispelled
as is her signature at the bottom
and in the lower left hand corner
you can just make out a tiny green fingerprint

the canvas is a piece of cardboard
the sun is blue
mom and dad are red and holding hands
Amelia and her sister Abigail are yellow
waving to their uncle, me

primary colors
no shading
no background
no foreground
simple
glorious
profound

and if I close my eyes
and shut out the world
for just a minute…

I can see my niece
lying on her stomach
head propped up with her left hand
leaning over the canvas
her feet kicking up and down
from floor to butt
right index finger
dipped in a little jar of paint:
blue
studying like the Masters that came before
that next brilliant stroke...