Linda Pastan - Vermilion

 Pierre Bonnard would enter
the museum with a tube of paint
in his pocket and a sable brush.

Then violating the sanctity
of one of his own frames
he'd add a stroke of vermilion
to the skin of a flower.

Just so I stopped you
at the door this morning
and licking my index finger, removed
an invisible crumb
from your vermilion mouth.
 As if
at the ritual moment of departure
I had to show you still belonged to me.

As if revision were
the purest form of love.

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