The Solitary Collaborator

They showed solidarity,
Collaboration, movement

Of art as shared exercise
With no additional text,

Embodying assumption
That many bodies working

Together make the best work,
Scolding the solitary

Genius as a myth, likely
A colonialist myth,

Capitalist myth, or both,
Idolatry of the sole

Creator obfuscating
Truths of collaboration.

It didn’t occur to them
How much collaboration

Goes on in embodied texts,
Whether the embodiments

Are multiple and in reach
Of each other or one host,

Not solitary, lonely,
Steeped in additional texts.