Color Of The Walls Poem by Joy Katz

is spreading, indefinite at the edges as idea
or a dream escaping.
Words are weary as tow-pound chain.
The rain waits, all lightness and rising;
the trees wait; even the birds have stoppered. Words
block the dream, which wants to come like fumes.

The walls suffuse upon waking,
hilarity in that moment before your life returns.
Color rises, is spirit in you;
in light spins, in shadow
comes richly into your chest like Vick's.
So nothing must refer to it:

the teapot must remain serious; the table may not approach.
Archaic torso turns away into the corner.
The rugs occupy themselves with the story of their making.
Chairs, in quorum, decide upon the nearness of important things,
like capital punishment. Good chairs.
If even the serving-bowl takes its pain from these walls,
the color will break up, sweeten to tyranny.