Our society is grappling with a soul-sickness that is ultimately an infection of our imagination. An election may address symptoms, but how do we treat the underlying disease? How to heal the imagination? Perhaps this is what the arts are for.

Yusef is so taken with the woman in black that he stares at her as she makes her way to the back of the van, and he forgets himself, and Iordannis has to remind him to start the van. Yusef decides right then and there that he will have her picture.

Our bare hands redden as we work, / he high on the ladder cutting the old / connections, and I drilling / outlet hole through the siding.

He then went on, as if he were reading from a script, which I realized later he was, to list my severance package, which wouldn’t get me through the new year. It took me a second to realize someone from HR was in the office with him.

Son’s / net-/ works / / veins under / the skin / of the dark / / call / see/ knock! / / a chandelier / glows / in the dark

Cancer has allowed me to view myself as a canvas; my body has been primed, stretched, cut, and painted. My blood is paint, the needle is the brush, and my body is the canvas.

this is / not your tragedy this is / a scrap a slip a fragment/ a swatch of fabric cut / off the roll

We played a word game on the mountain, / spelled cuneiform, spelled thoracic: / / the game’s strict rules / encourage motion / / up through thistles, saffron, / yellow stains

I love how it changes color with different kinds of light—it’s a different image in the morning than in the evening. Or the color shifts as the viewer moves position. The painting has a little life of its own.

Katherine Mooney Brooks on art, illness, and the failures of the body