Studio, With Warning Color

Blue holds the room the way a jar keeps bees—
a hum tucked under glass.
Your hair rehearses for water,
reef-bright, an iodine dawn.
Freckles: salt that summer forgot to gather,
still stippling the wrist.

The bulb above us ticks like a metronome
for storms.
Palette knives lean like thin, impatient anchors;
a fan chews the heat into ribbons;
linseed and turpentine thread the light;
the floor remembers every step in chalk.

You teach your breathing to idle in neutral,
hands steady as pylons.
Pigment loosens its grip on the tin—
alizarin, ultramarine—
and then the brush begins to name weather
onto skin-width canvas:
squall, break, harbor, keep.

Outside, a siren throws itself
against the window and nothing shatters.
Inside, the mouth learns current, not sugar;
the eyes refuse the blur and its pastel apology.
Color does the speaking we postponed.
It tells us the body is borrowed light,
and you—steady—balance a pilot flame
on the wet edge of your tongue.

When the take is done, the hush returns,
coin-bright and exact.
Somewhere a bird practices emergency in a minor key.
The door opens a little wider than before,
and noon—polite no longer—steps in.