I live my art the way city fog knows to swallowsomething whole enough to make it seemiridescent from a distance I live my art the waymy body follows the curves of landscape and mymouth is stained cadmium

They ask me what happens when poets paint I say that they turn scarlet that my guts know how to be an artisteven when my hands forget  It's in the way trees sometimes argueand crows come tell me stories

My art is stained in pinewood, in turpentine, in lipstick, dead skin and fox fur my art is a fist unclenching, clenching, unfurling into poppies My art is scraped knees on pavement the way a wound opens so sweetly for the dirt the way the dirt echoes the coloursin my blood

My art is a tongue, swollen, sprinkled in sugarLicking the last bit of "Yes" off every surfacesometimes a canvas knows how to burythe last bit of beautiful before I dosometimes paper loves a beautiful thingbefore I do sometimes I am a beautiful thing

They ask me what happens when painters writeI say their spines become metaphorsFor branches flinching thenbending to easelsthen straightening to become  something unbent again