This gift is not made with the best
of all intentions.

I am not a good-natured
physician.

Unwilling to endure another "Hug," a 
word of encouragement, the kind baritone
presented in cut-off jeans

The slow light I hear when
I read your dreams

I drunkenly message you that I must
wrest my heart from its chest and beg you
to let me send it

Wrapped in brown paper.

This work is not written
as a perscription
for comfort or healing

but still with

Hope

That one day in passing it by 
you will think "I really should take that thing
down."

And as you reach, I hope
a flux of thought flusters you -- a jumble
of the day's concerns but in

Red
Yellow
Orange
Blue and

Some kind of purple?

And I hope that in this brief confusion
you make some
small
irreparable damage to the canvas.

This is my work.
My gift to all its patients.