Isabel BallanVenus wounded by a rose’s thorn—Italian, 1500-1550All day you are brilliant out of yourself resplendent. Now night coming there is a fold into which you fold curving...
Isabel BallanDe Kooning, Easter MondayBird-scream bustle you tangled arms and cars pushing and pulsing with dreams caught in your throats—gag— wait—is that a dagger I see...
Isabel BallanLouise Nevelson, Mrs. N’s PalaceMy house but the rooms are not mine. Here is where I sat to escape my death, here the mirror of the many faces. Each room says “where?”...
Isabel BallanJudit Reigel, Guano (Menhir)Follow the tracks the crows make the splintered blue imprints of trees in water. Impressed by pond scum leap over this into that green...
Isabel BallanRothko, Untitled, 1964Muddy streambed lets in no light. The eye turns back into its den and sleeps.