Alexander Bilzerian: Impasto

The trees have taken sides—
left bank, right bank,
leaning into silences
that will outlast us.

The road goes
toward that salmon-copper slit
where the sky shows
it has been wrong about something
it will not name.

◊

My father drove toward dying
the way you can see where Kansas ends
an hour before you reach it.

I was in the car.
        I was the car.
            I was the distance opening
                between us,
                    no matter the speed.

◊
    
She painted this with a knife.
I need it to be a knife—
the whole arm behind it,
shoulder torquing into the stroke
the way you throw your weight
into a goodbye
that won’t stay said.

The paint is thick enough to dig in
and find another sky beneath,
older,
just as unconvinced.

◊

I keep looking for the figure,
the walker, the witness.
No one.

The painting will outlive
me standing here, wanting it
to show me his car
cresting the last visible hill,
to show me the window
still partway down,
to show me his hand
lifting once
from the wheel.

◊

It shows me a road.

It shows me where the road
runs out of light—
not all at once,
but by degrees
you keep mistaking
for almost.

—Published in Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2026, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.