Splatters of paint on the canvas
halfway between Mandelbrot
and Rorschach—depending on

whichever way it is tipped. To make
Kandinsky cry, just show it to him
at different angles and it’ll be new,

it will be another nightmare
cusping on the fantasy-life
of leisure and sunsets and art

or coming home to find your maid has
knocked your devotion over, careless
of which of its ups was up. You cried

“Eureka!” for the change of perspective
(or at least used that as an excuse
to run soaking and naked in the streets).

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Carson Pytell is a writer living outside Albany, New York, whose work appears in such venues as The Adirondack Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Fourth River, and The Heartland Review. He serves as Assistant Poetry Editor of Coastal Shelf, and his most recent chapbooks are Tomorrow Everyday, Yesterday Too (Anxiety Press, 2022), and A Little Smaller Than the Final Quark (Bullshit Lit, 2022)

Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer. His writing has appeared in Best New Poets, Meridian, Rattle, The Southern Review, Fence, Texas Review and Atlanta Review among others. He also publishes the writing prompt blog Notebooking Daily, and edits the literary journal Coastal Shelf.