Fernand Léger

I promise you, Nadia,
when the medium dances, he said.
I promise you -- heaven true.

What is your culture to me
she said.

Mediating world & brain
is my job, he said.

Ha!
Said Nadia.

The representation -- or sometimes
misrepresentation -- of self & class
might result not
without its critics, he said.

Ha, ha.

He said a decade later
I hit the fragmented
object of a new realism.

Nadia said bull shit.

This is not to say
the widespread availability of house plants
excuses love-slaps.

He said.

It's true & what's not true
makes all the difference between here & there,
she said.

So I made a big mistake, he said.
So I took the big-take.

Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, she said.
For once, you don't
want to fight.

For poetry's a social act,
she said, & painting's pure
punch-fuck.