3 February 2020

By Philip Kuepper

You can have all
the blacks and the whites you like.
Give me, instead,
melon, orange
purple, vermilion,
green, a blue of such violet
I can wear it as a pair
of trunks to go swimming in.

Give me, also, yellow,
the yellow of gold I see
through van Gogh’s eyes!

How dull the blacks, dull the whites,
when vast swathes of colors
lay across the sunset
sky reflected in the river,
where the colors transform
into boats flicking like flames,
on the wave-cut water.

(2 February 2020)