old von bredow and his widow in apparent
years sufficient but too
meticulous in their pleasures to ever be
grandparents, somber-slim and softly
rich as becketts, are again in the market
for a girl to cook, polish, launder, drive, pose for his
sketches and comply without kvetching with
the importunities enticed by ripening
youth. evidence of a recent
bloodtest, a signed declaration of
boyfriendlessness, sweet
breath and high
breasts to be presented in
that order at the
interview. the list of alumnae tallies a

fine-arts-in-berlin who’s who: the tooth-sculptress, the
pain artist’s muse, the longterm girlfriend of two
married antiquities dealers and the wife
of a brewery-inheriting collector of
restoration erections, plus
the headmistress of a faux-french trompe l’oeil atelier of
ill-repute. all have done well for art
students. the first in the series, the

widow herself in
1962, 18 to von Bredow’s
30: blackplumed, supple, striking
as a horsehair whip
(father a)
(cinematographer at Łódź)
(one of the chosen)
(few aryans slain by a)
(jew in that era in a)
(duel over a pupil’s)
(paramour)
she’d mix
von b’s patented lacquers, gesso/sand/re-gesso/re-sand his
grander canvasses; photograph, crate-up, ship-out each
piece of his gigantic oneiric
maps from the studio overlooking
the Lietzensee and its petit bourgeois
paths. later she even came
to finish certain works and worse
paint others ab
ovo usque ad mala whilst the maestro
napped. her man can live for what feels like years

without urges regarding the
pinkerparts of the
people. it’s the widow herself, blackwings
turned to pearly bob, cupped breasts white as
dresden pots in timebrowned
hands who relishes the
entering of that room kept sternly
lockless, its unblocked
view of three steeples, not even
knocking. an applicant/supplicant buzzes

breathless down at front, the widow sips
her salted coffee, walks
the atrium with numbered
steps, stops to stoop to pocket a
foilship of gumwrap off
the cloud-reflecting
koi pond feeling

deathless



.