Juan De Pareja, 1670
  
        He was not my father
though     he might have been
        I came to him
the mulatto son
                of a slave woman
        just that
as if     it took only my mother
        to make me
             a mulatto
meaning
        any white man
could be my father

*

In his shop    bound
        to the muller
I ground his colors
        my hands dusted    black
with fired bone     stained
        blue             and flecked
with glass     my nails
edged vermilion     as if
        my fingertips bled
In this way     just as
        I’d turned the pages
of his books
I meant to touch
        everything he did

*

With Velázquez in Rome
       a divination
At market    I lingered to touch
       the bright hulls of lemons
             closed my eyes until
       the scent was oil
and thinner    yellow ocher
       in my head
             And once
the sudden taste of iron
             a glimpse of red
       like a wound opening
            the robes of the pope
at portrait
       that bright shade of blood
            before it darkens
purpling nearly to black.

*

Because he said
       painting was not
       labor  was
the province of free men
       I could only
watch   Such beauty
       in the work of his hands
            his quick strokes
       a divine language I learned
over his shoulder
              my own hands
tracing the air
       in his wake     Forbidden
             to answer in paint
I kept my canvases secret
             hidden until
       Velázquez decreed
             unto me
       myself    Free
I was apprentice   he
            my master still

*

How intently at times
       could he fix his keen eye
             upon me
though only once
       did he fix me     in paint
my color a study 
       my eyes wide
             as I faced him
a lace collar at my shoulders
       as though I’d been born
            noble
       the yoke of my birth
gone from my neck
       In his hand     a long brush
             to keep him far
       from the canvas
far from it    as I was
       the distance between us
             doubled     that
he could observe me
       twice     stand closer
             to what he made
For years      I looked to it
       as one looks into a mirror

*

                     And so
in The Calling of Saint Matthew
       I painted my own
likeness    a freeman
       in the House of Customs
                 waiting to pay
my duty         In my hand
       an answer        a slip of paper
                 my signature on it
       Juan de Pareja     1661
Velázquez      one year gone
       Behind me
                 upright on a shelf
a forged platter       luminous
                 as an aureole
       just beyond my head
                my face turned
to look out from the scene
       a self portrait
To make it 
                 I looked at how
my master saw me       then 
       I narrowed my eyes

*

Now
       at the bright edge
of sleep   mother
She comes back to me
       as sound
             her voice
in the echo of birdcall
a single syllable
             again
and again    my name
       Juan Juan Juan
or    a bit of song     that
            waking
I cannot grasp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Pareja