—Mark Rothko to Selden Rodman, 1957

Once I walked with my father through a room
of liquid hues, the crowds so dense we bent
or stretched to see the canvases—fragment
of pink, a wisp of black like dark perfume
that floated through the air, an orange plume.
The way an anxious creature tracks a scent,
we followed tints and tones, the bleak descent
to shadow, each later painting like a tomb

sealed shut. And after, on the empty street,
the ground was full of petals. Cherry trees
had tossed their blossoms everywhere, a crush
of aching flowers underneath our feet.
The sky was gray, a thousand subtleties
created by some distant, hazy brush.