Ode to My Sakura Koi Watercolor Field Box

I love you
my rainbow in a box
of endless possibilities,
your twenty-four parched jewels
panting in their tiny pans,
waiting
for the quenching strokes
of my water-brush
and another chance
to dance with paper,
to turn Chinese White into
the reflection of an iguana’s eye,
Lemon Yellow into palm frond tips,
Aureoline into a beach umbrella at el Anclote,
and Permanent Yellow Deep
into the blush of a solitary papaya
on a Cobalt plate,
or the edge of the world at sunset.

I adore swirls of Permanent Orange
as the wind-swept hair of a child
riding her bike over cobblestones
with a thin wash of Jaune Brilliant
for cheek flush, and
in a painting of the cemetery up on the highway
Cadmium Red plastic rose wreaths
hanging on wooden crosses during Day of the Dead,
and the Vermilion of fresh paint
on a Coca…