In the last year of his life, wretchedly shortened through illness,
Manet painted several of these vases of simple flowers.
                                                           -Sister Wendy, The Book of Meditations

When the world
was reduced to a black flag
of pain, what else could he do
but paint flowers, white
lilacs in a crystal vase,
prismatic in the May sunlight,
their heavy perfume
filling the room?

And what can I do
when my autistic son
talks nonsense,
flicks and stims?
I want to go out 
and swim in this river
of drenching scent,
so thick you could lick it
from the air.  I’d like to shrink
to the size of a raindrop,
make my home on this branch
of white clusters, let the ether
of their odor anesthetize the evening,
a field of blank white snow.

-from Impressionism (Grayson Books)

Who cares about those convicts rowing a path in the moonlight?
It’s the water we want to look at, taking its own sweet time
as it steps up to the microphone to solo, an improvisation in blue:

Ohio match tips, mouthwash, flax fields in France.
The moon, once in a while.
The moon, where I saw you standing alone.
The moon, forme d’Ambert, Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola.
Speedwell, rosemary, chicory, plum.
Skies, smiling at me.  The wild yonder.
Something about a Monday.  Something to get tangled up in.
Twelve bars, Bessie, Billie, Janis, piano, steel guitars.

Oh, Eddie Manet, he’s got the blues,
got paint on his shoes, done paid his dues,
oh, Eddie Manet, he’s got the blues,
yeah, he got them blues so bad . . . . . 

-first published in The Mom Egg