Somebody's Behind That Screen
Parker Menzimer
With the blinds drawn to another and another violet evening, my colors get busy mixing to their
heart’s content. My dear colors
are incriminated in sanitary sheets. Lit from below by the reflective surface we buff and rebuff.
Operated on for educational purposes. Stuck-up in broad daylight. Made examples of.
Do we reel in the street-lit dark we despise? Do we pluck samples from sheets of sweets? Our
colors run. Like crosshairs tragicomically caught in the crosshairs. Like all-night-party people.
Like chorus people. Like datamoshers. Like color runners.
I drag my tempera across a fictive palette for your admiration. My bitter odor
is lost upon a swell of plaster.
I, violent mascot, drown in paint chips.
Abraded tie dye effigy, defiant in some respects.
Another I of stolen colors skulks, penalized in a bedroom. Cuffed to an armoire, awaiting bread
and sword, violet lip to nacreous hand. Another wishes to better serve its master, ultraviolet fury.
The colors infight, remap the prismatic territory. I run in gauzy sheets. Panache and verve are
nowadays widely hated, and so too, are you.
Were you dazzled by the sentimental sepia?
Dash out that florid monochromy.
Evince a tremulous hue.