Yet something saves this pair from looking foolish as lovers mugging through funhouse cutouts. Like a boiled egg in its porcelain cup, the husband s face tops a cone of tie and shirt. What else but those pointillist measles creeping past the photo s hinted frame to infect the actual one. Canvas sweats hard, annuls our faith in borders. We are asked to believe disease is the cure for this pair posing in artful restraint.
Spots blur all that divides one from the other, and both from the doubtful table and room.
For eight hundred dollars we could breakfast beneath this, on a real table we cover with dimity. If we stare hard enough we could levitate its spots. We could slice some speckled fruit the artist surely forgot. We wouldn t have to talk. We could join the dots.