Painted Iris

One half of me is a blank page,
the other has been painted
over the years and hours —
slow strokes of time at the mercy
of dreams and lesser whims.

I hold the brush to the canvas,
(who am I kidding?)
this is not another's skin.
I want out, so I walk out
of the well-lit room and into the day,
where traffic merges with light
and senses swell in the heat.

In the distance, a siren;
in my back pocket, a pen.
From inside me a voice
rises like tide. On my palm
I write down a poem.