2026 NaPM 11 April

[wasellajam]

Venice with Peggy and Pollock

My dad was Mr. Midcentury Modern,
Danish furniture and art covered walls
and a family pass to New York's
Museum of Modern Art.

I grew up endlessly spinning
those gift shop color wheels,
accustomed to shapes flying
in the air, puzzling them together
then rearranging.
But I never got Pollock.
Just. Couldn't. Get it.

Then I visited Peggy, what she left.
Eating morning focaccia
in her sculpture garden in
preparation for her palazzo
on Venice's Grand Canal.

Strolling the remnants of a life of choice,
the bric and brac of a well-loved home,
I pause and pause and pause,
at home with the covered walls
but all the works new to me,
making sure to let them imprint.

Then ahead of me a long narrow
high-ceilinged room, one side hung
with a stretched row of huge canvasses.
As I walk the line I'm swimming in emotions, all of them, changing
from piece to piece, building,
piling on until by the end
I've lived it all.

Thanks, Peggy, for the gift of Jackson.