SURROUND HER WITH COLORS

Step one: Andromeda. Step two: dark eyelashes.
Step three: adulthood with faint traces of childhood.
Stabilizer: On. Auto-focus: off. Step four: love
how she touches you. Think: the stars are planning
the erasure of two-hundred-year-old silences,
so let her try to reach you. Step five: look at her
without expressing fear. Draw a tarot card
and let her tell you what it means.
Give her a crown of almonds and wet grass.
Frame something teal, something velvet,
something worthy. Give her a cathedral,
an amber glove, remix raspberry and neon.
Give her a lilac cube, enamored hi-shine.
Step six: avalanche of electric violet.
Cover her in changeable taffeta and ginger root.
Love her little vices, her moss and copper.
Bring your relics. Step seven: sing.

 _________

Madeleine Barnes is a poet, visual artist, and scholar from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania living in Brooklyn. She serves as Poetry Editor at Cordella Magazine, a publication that showcases the work of women-identified and non-binary writers and artists. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University, and her second chapbook, Light Experiments (2019) is Porkbelly Press’ first ever zine-style photo chapbook. She is currently pursuing a PhD in English Literature at The Graduate Center, CUNY, where she works primarily at the intersection of poetry and material culture. madeleinebarnes.com