yellow

an empty seat on the train
begging for inhabitants.
a summer cottage heart
in the snow.

van gogh’s night nude
waiting for blinking lovers.
the stars coming
on
like paris gaslights slow
spreading fuming yellow
paint through your arteries
decorating the walls.

inside, a seed
longing for its own
pain -

growth.

sunflowers shooting out
the brains -

murder.

oh sunflower, don’t you nod too much
or too little?
don’t you shrink
like a bud braised in the burn
of the sun?
oh sunflower, my sunflower don’t
you wither into your past
back to fetus in the womb
back to ignorance of the tomb
in the soil that made you?

sunflower don’t
you forget
this sun is no perfect
lover
no steadfast
lover
don’t you

resent
his name in yours?
the burn of the sun
in your flower

don’t
you forget

how you bloom in his glow.

sweet honey in your chest
hurts slow.
your skin, hurts slow. pulling out your
petals.
your bud struggling to
become
and in its rise committing
murder of its own
so it can be more

so much more
to unfurl
so much more
to paint
like rouge on your naked
body but burning
blinking yellow.

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh, "The Sower"