Hued

I painted you sunflowers, fat and rusty golden and broken stemmed.
You wrote me about why the war was wrong and I pictured your nipple hair.

I painted you irises, wispy and bloody purple and limping left.
You said blue is too easy and why not turn trees into bombs, and I pictured your scars as eyes.

I painted you carnations, strained and blotted white and water choked.
You said gravity makes you sick and cannons are cocks and I pictured you going bald.

I painted you pale with underarm hair, orange veins sliding out of you and blisters redding fingertips. You heard about foxes tearing through fences and seabirds getting sick over dry land, and I pictured you slumped on a potter’s wheel. 

And here come fireflies exploding in the chiaroscuro, their guts rising with your every exhale.
What if there was a way to light you on fire and collect your water? I’d keep you.

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Scott Siders is the author of two book of poems: This Side of Oblivion (2002) and The Armpit of Desire (2005). His third book of poetry, All the Way From Nowhere, will be published in 2013. Scott wrote, performed, and co-produced et cetera et cetera (2007), a spoken word album featuring music by Josh Skelton. Scott has also written and co-produced two short experimental films: Looking to Land (2008), an official selection at the Rome International Film Festival and the Macon Film Festival, and Thomas Edison Was a Really Cool Guy (2012), an official selection at the Film Festival of Colorado, Indie Fest USA, American Independent Film Festival, and the Phenom Film Fest.