Explaining the Kandinsky Tree House

 

(shh)                                                   

 

 

They climb the rope ladder into a nest

of cardboard and blankets.

 

He covers her mouth with his hand,

holds her                                                   (there.)

 

She describes light through leaves, opaque,

viridian. Look, something new, he says,

 

a curved flame,

crimson, sprung from brown madder.

He holds it against her lips,                     (insists.)

 

(shh, shh)

 

 

Her skin blazes carmine, terra oxide red.

Water, he says,                            (is never clear.)

 

They bump the ladder up the sienna trunk,

alone, finally alone, breathing into each other.

 

She begins again:

the uniformity of green

 

rings out like a mad tuba                             (gold)

green, green tea in hansa yellow

 

cups she has carried up,

tea                               (she has drunk too much.) 

 

She continues. White, she says,

ivory black outlines, primary, bright,

never mixed colors.

 

She is     (full, very full, she has drunk too much.)

 

She squats, his hand on her belly, his mouth

on her belly, staying her, staying her

 

             (shh, shh)    ( mon père entend, écoute.)

 

 

She thickens herself into him, reaches up,

picks a pthalo green leaf to reveal

a slice

 

  (of cobalt blue)

 

ultramarine blue, blue lake, blue

(rider)                                                              sky.