The Painter

infinite stretch

I reach

 rub green through   Nature

trees on my

    fingertips

    color of our lungs

on rainy afternoons

    a lush world

blooms slow

like a    Lotus

     half-open

I wait

     planet of mud

 hands     outstretched

      to the blue

it pours

               leaves

are greener

     lost nights

I write

     places with

pumpkin purple

     horizons

and

  blood orange

      suns

      smeared ink

I erase

  blood blue

        stains

  on      page

        when the pen

     breaks

   I bleed     out

Spring Cleaning

 mud

 on my summer dress

 washed a thousand times

 the brown spot, which is supposed to be

 white and pure like the rose I gave my mother

 the tile floors are red and I am an off-white egg

 my yolk drips onto your head

 your laugh fills the walls

 we are in a cave

 somewhere

 home

 white

 is forgiveness,

 is hope, is surrender,

 my mother took the petals
and turned them red just like her lips

how remembering that always was

moment of being sucked dry
i scrubbed for days

i am white
wearing

mud