of faceted green apples and oranges
on blue, chiseled drapery.
It doesn't like that the painter
removed the third dimension,
flattened the life out of it,
bordering on the geometric
and defiance of gravity.
It smooths its fruit,
softens it's blue drapery,
which breaks free of the frame
and rolls more apples and oranges
across the now rippling walls.
The painting knows the room itself
is a cube, and despises its ability
to confine things as the frame
and the painter did the painting.
It neutralizes the cubeness of the room
with organic qualities–
smooth branches and sexual
O'Keeffian apple blossoms.
The drapery becomes the sky,
the fruit, an endless orchard.
Room and painting are distant concepts.
One day the painter,
who has moved on to abstract art,
walks the orchard, and notes:
this was once my painting,
because apples and oranges
don't grow on the same tree.
--
Marc Darnell is an online tutor and lead custodian in Omaha NE. He received his MFA from the University of Iowa, and has published poems in The Lyric, Blue Unicorn, Ragazine, The Literary Nest, The Pangolin Review, and elsewhere. His newest book is The Sower from Cyberwit Press. He has forthcoming books from Impspired Books and White Violet Press.