Umbrella
A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose


Lynne Shapiro

is a writer and teacher who lives with her husband and son on the Jersey side of the Hudson River where she makes the most of living on a major migration route for birds.

She’s had poems and essays published this year in Qarrtsiluni, Terrain.org, Trespass, Myslexia, and Hiss Quarterly.


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R   ert   au   che   rg’s  Undoing   of a deK     g Dr    i g In 1953 the American artist, Robert Rauschenberg erased a Willem deKooning drawing, with de Kooning’s permission. The “new” artwork is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Turns out the icon was erased.
No arched repercussions,
only white tinged with underlayed markings,
proof of transformation,
residue of unraveled unrivaled revolution
whereby absence becomes pretense,
stillness, white entryway to
interiority and unheard melody,
sweet as Mallarmé’s faded saint.
Thought replaced by action
becomes thought again.
The icon exerts its presence.