Self-Portrait as a Fountain

Bruce Nauman, chromogenic development print, 1967

Spin and spin and spin and bend and jut and squirt

Make of us a monument

We haven’t broken the definite space between us

We haven’t a place for solitude

The edge of the photograph

The glow of the light

The splash of water hitting tile

One hopes

One considers mopping when making art

Towels when making missed connections

The look they call youth I’ve already lost

Are we interested in accuracy

Given to a man whose eyes never shone

How many hours in a dark studio

How many bottles uncorked

Tell us how to focus the lens

Obligatory Icarus Poem

I never know where to look anymore,
how high to crane my neck. How low.
O, there’s nothing new about the sun.
I’ll be long dead when it implodes. So,
tell me about the splash, what
looks like finality but isn’t, how many
boats they sent out to search,
how many fathers found floating.