Portrait of Frank O'Hara by Alice Neel

by Renee Zepeda

white linen pants
sea-blue sweater
blue linen shirt
w/collar tucked underneath
no earring
jagged boxer's nose (from a break)
blue eyes, Onyx fine trimmed hair
receeding hairline, large forehead
pronounced Adam's Apple
thin bluish tinted skin
emaciated look-- 140 lbs?
(how old is Frank here, circa 1960?)
pinkish, purple lilacs, fresh w/
waxy green leaves
for a crown around Frank's head
and what appears to be
the white trunk of an Elephant wearing palest
blue sock
the back of chair
is the Elephant's eye &
a rust color for contrast swabbed
beneath (Ganesha's) trunk
where we see NEEL's (stylized) signature
in Black--
how Frank sits on the yellow-orange
cushioned chair appears
lightly, ease-ily, perhaps slouching a bit
yet he looks determined, birdlike
not hawkish, but rather like a songbird
perhaps a Crane, not a stork, but
maybe a Bluebird, though not comical &
(not powerful enough for a Swan),
he would be the kind of bird that hangs out
with sheep for their lanolin
and soft doves for their cooing.
I think of Lady Day and Ella Fitzgerald
and I remember the poet Joan Murray
who said (heroically)
"All things are cool in themselves
and complete,"
when I look at this portrait of Frank &
the grey shadow around
the front of his face
and the white strip
like an ice sculpture or abstract
stalactite diamond cylinder
balancing on his left arm
reminds me of music by Mancini.

We cannot see his hands--

only his right
perfect
Rosebud
ear
and
lovely
high
cheekbones.

"Grace to be born,"
Frank O'Hara once said,
"and live as variously as possible."