Jacob Burgess Rollo
I like this painting because I liked
your face when I told you
that the portrait isn’t of Christ
but of The Yellow Christ –
who is distinct. Like how mine is
not the same red nose as the red nose
of a drunk. The pew pew pew
of a gun in the wide mouth
of a kid is just the sounding out
of a wound. The cloisonnism of lips
when parted beneath a hand.
If given the choice of not speaking
as you chew, or not chewing
at all – you’d take the latter.
You’d take a crucifixion that hurts
your eyes like chrome
can taint pure yellow – and this
worries us a lot. Picasso once said
some painters transform the sun
into a yellow spot. But others do
the opposite, and better. There is
no actual way to confirm this
distinction enough to excuse its
eloquence. You are walking
through the gallery. I am clacking
my coconut halves together
to make you seem doubly important.
Jacob Burgess Rollo is a poet from Dorset. His work is featured or forthcoming in The London Magazine, Oxford Poetry, Magma, Berlin Lit, fourteen poems, Basket, and elsewhere.
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