Any horizon

will do as long as it looks 

good from a distance,

rolling cyclorama

as shiny beyond

reaching past the world’s

floundering bottom lines.

Closer, there’s just

more land, sea or sky --

hope likes a good

curved hold, rosy

unknown now and then

freshening the view.

*

Survey

That old unfocused

     focus group

the cosmic masses

     wants to know

How many self-

portraits does it take

to reveal the painter?

     Rembrandt’s 90-plus

don’t say much, each

     four-cornered gaze

a self-assembled

visual aid, an exercise,

objectivity teased out

     by the subjective.

Doesn’t matter how

     the light falls,

a premeditated face

even when framed

is still PR,

     brushstroke

            as veil, as trace

     of motivation,

sneaky dim-lit urge

that shapes the world.

**

Sally Molini co-edits Cerise Press. Her work appears/will appear in Barrow Street, American Letters & Commentary, Gargoyle, Diagram, Cimarron Review, 
and other journals.  She lives in Nebraska.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/poetry/molini_poems.php

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