The brush tattoos the dry gesso with
corruption’s purple. It taps like a bird beak,
spilling wet points to form, when looked at from
four feet back, a line to seduce the miserly eye.
Instinct is caressed by discipline, they trade between them
the neurotic stopwatch. A green memory from another past,
the finest tables reserved for kleptocrats and
their unmarried cousins. A white memory from the
future, the chirr of sparks on the rail
line, the long-awaited news of victory
and its unforgivable cost.