Just Kids

I no longer felt that I was the right model for him, but he would wave my objections away. He saw in me more than I could see in myself. Whenever he peeled the image from the Polaroid negative, he would say, “With you I can’t miss.”

I longed to enter the fraternity of the artist: the hunger, their manner of dress, their process and prayers.

A universe not yet scored contained beneath the pale lids.

was a good day to arrive in New York City. No one expected me. Everything awaited me

We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world. There were temptations and witches and demons we never dreamed of and there was splendor we only partially imagined.

I never heard him speak again. Save for his breath, which seemed to fill his hospital room as he lay dying.

So my last image was as the first. A sleeping youth cloaked in light, who opened his eyes with a smile of recognition for someone who had never been a stranger.

Why can’t I write something that would awake the dead?

The clouds were the colors of a Raphael. A wounded rose. I had the sensation he had painted it himself. You will see him. You will know him. You will know his hand. These words came to me and I knew I would one day see a sky drawn by Robert’s hand.

it occurred to me looking around at all of your things and your work and going through years of work in my mind, that of all your work, you are still your most beautiful. The most beautiful work of all.