Juno Zago, Someone Watched The Barbie Movie And Had Feelings Afterwards, 2023
Mixed media collage, rhinestones and fabric on wooden panel, 12 x 12”
Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Website, Instagram
but as far as I know he’s still alive.
There’s a rule about waiting (and waiting)
for people to die.
I don’t like it either,
but it makes a certain kind of sense.
No point writing about folks
who can still
mount a credible defense.
Wait till their tongues go slack.
Till the doc peels off
the stethoscope: Well, that’s that.
Till the urn is hand-delivered
by the mortuary staff
in a long-handled,
khaki-colored hemp bag. Even then,
a poem isn’t a shoot-em-up Western,
you know. I’m serious.
No gun-slinging.
No saloon doors swinging.
Can revenge occur? Sure, but
it can’t be the point.
It has to be incidental,
inadvertent, a vaguely surprising
by-product of
the persistent materiality of art.
Like the most vibrant
green grass you’ve ever seen
in all your life
sprouting up around your
backyard compost pile. Like that.