make up for june 27th

i remember she hated that painting
with her face in the purple ground
like a seed, a tendril of green hair
and cradled in thick leaves,
long dove-grey horizon behind

it hung above the couch
between all the real
plants

and something about that seed
the artist hated, too-
something wrong in your
seedling face upturned
to an absent sun

back to the brushes
and he burnt it,
buried its shreds
and ashes
in the ground