INVENTORY

I have paintbrushes

to open doors,

to clean frozen ducts

and level wobbling chairs.

Paintbrushes tied to lanterns,

to forks, to fingers, to other paintbrushes.

I have paintbrushes that lost their heads,

I tried to fix them with duck tape.

Paintbrushes with camel hair, dolphin hair

rattlesnake hair, bluebird hair.

Paintbrushes with the hair stuck together

like fists, white haired, with afros, flamingheads,

wounded, in a wheelchair,

veterans from the war of a thousand days.

Paintbrushes with vertebras of doves.

I have immortal paintbrushes

looking like ghosts, although they can be also

the reincarnation of pens.

I have paintbrushes that wear ties, go to their desks

do only what they are told to do

and bend over ledger books.

Paintbrushes that are never home,

leaving menacing messages on an answering machine.

Paintbrushes that give birth every two weeks,

to baby paintbrushes crying to be fed.

I have paintbrushes that think

that life is the color of water.

I have paint brushes longing for the day when

they will meet the palette of their dreams,

where there will be enough colors to paint

all the things they have seen.