The Painting After Lunch

It wasn’t working. Didn’t look back. Needed something else. So I went out. After lunch I saw it in a different light, like a thing emerging from behind a fever bush, something reaching the senses with the smell of seaweed boiling, and as visible as yellow snowdrops on black earth. Tasted it too, on the tongue Jamaica pepper. To the touch, a velvet flower. Dragging and scumming, I gave myself to it stroke after stroke. It kept coming in bits and fits, fragments and snags. I even heard it singing but in the wrong key like a deranged bird in wild cherries, having the time of its life.