HOLD ROSE
by Eileen Myles, July 15, 2020

Angle iron to hold the negatives up - metal clips to hold the reins to hold the glass plate negatives.  - Sheilah ReStack

Even if it passes through me, the virus, I could possibly be strong. My truck shuddered violently when I pulled up here. I’ll hold your work to help me keep getting out. The strong cross bar. We were watching “Spook Who Sat by The Door” (Ivan Dixon, 1973) the other night in Marfa about a black FBI agent turned revolutionary and then in the office of the white FBI director there on the wall right behind his desk was Mondrian. I thought is that like a post 60s modernist joke. Sheilah’s piece gives me peace. Hold Rose. She’s holding somebody. She leans it. I pasted this line of hers above to be my cross bar somehow. Each element is sent off to work in a recipe. Liz keeps adding one more thing to fix my experience. Eggs, almond milk, soft cotton for the inside of my mask. She’s a terrific host and so cautious. The mask enables the upper part of her face to join in the action differently. I see her daughter, Caitlin, my friend, more in her because of this. The virus is reshaping all of our expressions. Trump thinks he looks good in his mask and in his case it’s true. There’s less of him. I’d probably like some watery red paint that produces rose, I’d like to put a wash of color on one little area of her painting which is not what this is but the sentence keeps pushing and framing. The horse thing the broken rein makes me think of my truck and the horses I left behind: Cowboy, Disco, Thunder and Dusty but we leave nothing things are already changing before the going gets happening. Who Sheilah reaches to here is insignificant. The tension of the work is the two (or the three) and I think the nakedness of the conflict provides energy and everyone is in on this: Hold Rose. What you say to someone (possibly Dani) when you are doing something. The bell just rang, it’s UPS - hope it’s that plexi. I’ll get it. Hold Rose. The cicadas roll. Such an invisible part of nature that humming every day. I surround you with my journal. There’s the lake. Erin’s got horses (“Somerset”, “Pumpkin”) on the other side of my journey AND she just realized when we quarantine there probably it will mean she can’t ride. Let me go she said I’ve just got to think about this. Reaching, turning, muscular. Where’s the color. Here. Passion. In the making. In the moment. That turning. Reach. There’s a hole in the angle a radiant ray, like a funnel, a tundish, at the bottom of the photo the spirits are leaving. That’s smart.