there was something soft and shapeless

about the way i died

crushed beneath cezannes       

le jardinier vallier

the brash blocks of emotive oil

floating from the canvas

choking my pores like vines

throttling a crumbling French farmhouse

as you sat on a wooden stool

resting in the cool green shade

shapes and contours gripped

vice-like around my smiling throat

then calm, as my soul flew

to an overgrown garden

in aix-en-provence

where a man once taught everyone

to see beauty in its simplest form.