“Private Victories” by Liz Boeder
Liz Boeder’s fabulous painting entitled Private Victories is a Momento Mori- an object serving as a warning or reminder of death. The perfume and roses co-exist with the human skull in a rhapsodic pas de deux with no permission needed “may I have this dance” yes no not yet wait gimme just a few more years I still haven’t watched all the episodes of Twilight Zone or offered my apologies for asking your sister to the wake or mailed the letter on the way to get that milkshake or failed to take the shot when I had the chance or saved Trixie from the gas chamber or bought a ticket on the road to Music Box or solved the Unified Field equation.
It’ll be enough to go home to my wife and family before the cross examination starts as long as the skull holds the upper hand. I was filled with sexual innuendo when I got a whiff of that perfume but the roses absorbed the useful part leaving me with nothing but the leftover bags packed indicating pre meditation and a relevant clarity of sightline between birth and death with no malice a foreskin.
~ Frank Garvey