The hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo by Didi Menendez

Blue Flower, by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918.

The hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo.

This is the way it went down.

1763 a maiden sits for a painter.
Her mother is the distant cousin of a Duke.
The girl sits and obeys her mother for hours
while the painter captures the hue of that portion
of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo.

She blinks and now it is 1874 and she is a whore in Paris.
The painter asks her to open her legs. She opens them
willingly. He momentarily drops his brush and stumbles
for something to place in his mouth. A cigar. A stiff hard drink.
He finds a way to get back to the hue of that portion
of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo.
He asks her to stay the night.

In the morning it is 1978 and the painter is in the living room
of the house she is temporarily staying in. She is just out
of High School. He is painting a cactus.
A cactus.

His eyes are the hue of that portion
of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo.

She approaches the painting.
She asks what is it? He says "a cactus".
All she sees is green.
She asks "why" because she is still too young to
understand about the hue of that portion of the visible spectrum
lying between green and indigo.

She walks away.
He goes back to painting pricks.
Each stroke stabs her.

She looks away for a moment
and she is 55 years old
and she is alone
staring at a canvas and all
she is able to think about
is blue.

Didi Menendez

Didi Menendez sometimes writes poems.