I wake from the dream another person, tasting metal
or salt, smelling turpentine, my shoulder askew and
my jaw out of whack. My father has not been stabbed

My body of course remained but all else
was a cluster of tiny white bubbles
floating up, up, up, to an unseen top.

Each Lynette Yiadom-Boakye painting is like looking into a story or an entire life.