Paintings

1.

I remember the pattern, the colors:
the purplish red
and the brown, 
edged in the starkest of blacks.

It could be a wound
or a flower,
signifying pleasure
or, perhaps, flat power
that itself makes plain
the struggle for life is a gate
that can make you free
or, on the other hand, maim. 

2.

I press my nose to a flower.
The gate swings wide.

Breeze blows and white petals shower
like snow on ice.

Perfume has a delicate power.

It's as if I taste
the essence of life in this hour. 

I take off my clothes
and stand naked where flowers are blooming.

It is then, gates close.

3.

And so I'm committed to memory,
and so I'm lost
to all but the patterns and colors,

the petals tossed
like snow or rice on a walk
to be swept by brooms.

Three times a groom
and, still, it has made little difference.
Should you ask, 
it's only patterns that last:
shades on a wall, shapes and colors displayed, 
pain on a canvas
to be observed and considered by all.