An Artist’s Studio

By Sofia Melka

There are many ways to pin down a face and keep it there.

Fine brushes and paints, gleaming paper still wet from soft strokes of a moment before. The window is open and the air is cold. Her half-smile appears mirror-like on every canvas, every page of battered notebooks given by old friends. In the older sketches her eyes are open, but slowly and sadly they close. In the finger paintings of the day before, she seems drowsy, ready for an uncertain sleep. In today’s work she is slumped over, her hair covering her carmine lips.

Now, she’s just art, unbreathing.