Good Pink. Bad Pink.

Carol Potter

When the child in mid-tantrum tried riding her pink scooter 

   directly off the platform and onto the packed train at 28th 

 & Broadway, her un-brushed hair bunched up in the back, her pink 

   jacket open, limbs flailing, we pretended to not see. Next to me 

 a man was leafing through the Sotheby's catalogue. Out the corner 

   of my eye, I could see a Matisse I'd never seen before, then 

 Duchamp. The edges of the woman all in pieces. Cubed. Like the child 

   in front of me. Hair, hands, eyeballs askew. Civilization 

 in its tweed coat on my left. The paintings he was studying 

   but would not exactly share with me. I went back to minding 

 my own business but then mother took the scooter back from 

   mad daughter who started twisting and screaming again. 

 I thought of telling her she could get arrested. Sent to reform school. 

   Adopted out. Anything. Her older sister smiled at me beatifically, 

 as if to say, Look what I put up with. She'd been dissembling, 

   enjoying her sister's disintegration. Someone else the bad one. 

 Which I never got from my sister, nor her from me. That public tantrum. 

   What we took apart we took apart quietly and in private. 

 Like that nude descending her staircase, one piece at a time; the steps 

   not looking like steps. Just odd blocks.