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| Cecily Brown Trouble in Paradise 1999 oil on canvas Tate Modern, London |
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| Cecily Brown Father of the Bride 1999 oil on canvas Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York |
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| Cecily Brown Broken Lullaby 1999 oil on linen Denver Art Museum |
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| Cecily Brown Untitled (Study no. 13) 1999 watercolor on paper Denver Art Museum |
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| Cecily Brown Puttin' on the Ritz 1999-2000 oil on linen Guggenheim Museum, New York |
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| Cecily Brown Hoodlum 2000-2001 oil on linen Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC |
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| Cecily Brown Black Painting 2 2002 oil on linen Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Cecily Brown Maid's Day Off 2005 oil on linen Hiscox Collection, London |
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| Cecily Brown All of Your Troubles Come from Yourself 2006-2009 oil on linen Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Cecily Brown after Eugène Delacroix Christ asleep in the Tempest (series, Shipwreck Drawings) 2016 gouache and watercolor on paper British Museum |
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| Cecily Brown after Théodore Géricault Raft of the Medusa (series, Shipwreck Drawings) 2016 watercolor and charcoal on paper British Museum |
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| Cecily Brown after Théodore Géricault Raft of the Medusa (series, Shipwreck Drawings) 2016 watercolor and charcoal on paper British Museum |
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| Cecily Brown Triumph of the Vanities 2018 oil on linen Brooklyn Museum |
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| Cecily Brown Flight of the Chickadee (Dance Study) 2021 mixed media on paper Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York |
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| Cecily Brown Flight of the Chickadee (Seasons Concept Study) 2021 mixed media on paper Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York |
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| Cecily Brown Flight of the Chickadee (Snakes and Ladders Concept Study) 2021 mixed media on paper Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York |
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| Cecily Brown Still Life with Shadows 2021 oil on linen, mounted on aluminum Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex |
Getting Through
I wrote the postcard to you and went out
Through melting snow to mail it. Old Miss Tree
Buttonholed me at the corner with something about
Today being our last chance. Indeed! Well, well,
Not hers and mine, I trusted gallantly,
Disengaging her knuckle from my lapel.
First thing on entering the Post Office,
I made out through my pigeonhole's slim pane
An envelope from you. Cheered up by this,
Card between teeth, I twirled the dials; they whirred
But the lock held. One, two, three times. In vain,
At the stamp window I called for Mr. Bird,
Our friendly Postmaster. Not a soul replied.
Bags of mail lay in heaps, lashed shut, the late
Snowlight upon them. When at last I tried
To avail myself of the emergency stamp machine,
A cancelled 20 franc imperforate
From Madagascar slid out, mocking, green.
Nerves, I thought, wishing more than ever now
You had not gone away, considering mailing
My card unstamped, presuming that somehow . . .
What's this! Your envelope lies at my feet,
Ripped open, empty, my name running, paling
From snow tracked in by me. Outside, Main Street
Is empty – no: a Telephone Company truck.
Why, I can phone! The mere sound of my voice
Will melt you, help decide you to come back.
But as I hurry home a water drop
Stops me, then little rainbow husks of ice –
From the telephone pole. There at the shivering top
Two men in rubber boots are cutting wires
Which heavily dangle from a further pole.
(Oh, May Day ribbons! Child our town attires
As Queen in tablecloth and paper crown,
Lurching down Main Street blindly as a mole!)
When the last wire is severed I lurch down
The street myself, my blankness exquisite.
Beyond juniper hedge sits Mrs. Stone,
Mute on her dazzling lawn. Bracing to sit
In such fresh snow. I brightly call. Her hard
Gaze holds me like amber. I drop my own,
And find I cannot now read the postcard
Still in my grasp, unspotted and uncrushed.
My black inkstrokes hover intensely, still
Against the light – starlings gunshot has flushed
That hover one split second, so, then veer
Away for good. The trees weep, as trees will.
Everything is cryptic, crystal-queer.
The stationery store's brow drips, ablaze
Where the pink sun has struck it with the hand
Of one remembering after days and days –
Remembering what? I am a fool, a fool!
I hear with joy, helpless to understand
Cries of snow-crimson children leaving school.
– James Merrill (1962)