Understand, lovelies, I’m just a muse meant to mother
his vision, enrobed in what manages to escape his penned measure.
A tall golden frame, I shake this masterpiece my mother gave
me. Stephen’s canvas, a blanket from unbolted shades: mauve,
tangerine, maroon, aquamarine, and oh so black. Of this brother’s

 

sketch, this new stitch darning an old fabrication, I toss its bother.
A discounted color in disco light, I throw down this hot mustard
train, blaze a path to roam, to spin, to parry a dated way—
white hands under dark designs. I’m used to turning a mother

 

out. Ah, freak out!—play this blackness waxing on the A side, mister
DJ, turn the tables. Feel the rhythm! My feet, hemmed to the metered
beat of Stephen’s line: colored outside the lines, future tints that’ll leave
white-wined lips parched for more of our big beauty’s tonic. A slave
to his own fashion, slave in no one’s house. In this field, there’s no master
in gloves he stands under. Of this manse, he is its father and mother.