At the Met, standing in a room full of Rothkos, you turn to me.

"Tell me, who is your favorite abstract painter?"

"Oh," I reply, "Do you see how Rothko's colors leap off the canvas? It permeates everything—you can feel the mist in this room, soft like heaven. Yet that is the problem: his colors are so good they create a fog, a blinding. Which is ironic because Rothko seems to always want to show you. In contrast, Still does not want to show you, he wants you to see. His colors are scraping off each other, revealing what is otherwise impossible to apprehend. Still is not heaven, but he is truth."

"I asked you for a simple answer, not a lecture in art criticism," you say, touching my chest lightly with your index finger.

Later at night, I feel the heat of your finger burning in my chest. Put me in my place love, so long as it is beside you.