The Bed On The Wall by Lauren Camp

After Robert Rauschenberg’s “Bed,”

oil and pencil markings on pillow, quilt, and sheet, 1955

So garish: the arc of his interior

thinking. So red,

so deceptive. The coordinates of this project fall

between sheets and box spring:

the command of horizontal passage.

The bed soaked

with the overlapping tongue

of his brushes, with pattern interruption, the departure

from edges. Let’s say he is within

his composition. Inside

his story. As he tips

the paint, the objective can be taken

altogether away until he detects

only desire: a rough strike

of purple

censured from exuberance. The room remains

with the weeping wreckage

all around, and the panels

in the corner

beaded with aggressive desperate skins.

Below the window, the dirty

city, its permanent

tensed distances, its hungry

catastrophes, its bare

windows. His pillow is creased. It tells everything

we need to know. Each drip, directionless.