With nothing to declare in advance,there is no relationship between Mark Rothko and me.

He was born September 25, 1903,died February 25, 1970.I was born November 27, 1970and am still alive.It’s just thatsometimes I think of the nine months’ timeseparating my birth from his death.

Only a few daysafter that early morning when he slashed both his wristsin the kitchen attached to his studio,my parents united their bodiesand soon after that a speck of lifemust have lodged inside the warm womb.While in the late winter New York cemeteryhis body must not yet have rotted.

That’s not something wonderful,it’s something lonely. [End Page 172] I must have been lodged as a speckwhose heart had not yet begun to beat,knowing nothing of language,knowing nothing of light,knowing nothing of tears,inside a pink womb.

Between death and life,a gap-like Februaryenduring,enduring and finally healing,

In the half-melted, even colder groundhis hand must not yet have rotted, then.