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Lavinia Greenlaw

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The Last Postcard

after Malevich

I want to give you something as complete
as this house without doors or windows.
It swarms in its rectangle,
as busy and inward as an ant hill.
It simmers beneath three chimneys
that are themselves just puffs of smoke,
signals, perhaps, of frail but conclusive activity.

The red house stands on a green line
that could be grass or a thickening pool.
It widens a little to the left
as if growing or going somewhere.
As for the yellow fence or field,
we could climb or walk it,
or take the road that passes through
in a sweep of black, oblivious.
 
This summer, the years are lining up
like the edge of the world.
All the weight is behind us,
behind the house,
where a strand of white runs into blue,
erupting with dark and light
that accumulates, rises and curls
into cloud, mountain and water
about to tip the picture over.

Think of this as the long view,
a resettlement of colour into light.
Without doors or windows.
Like this red house, where I wish you.

 

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