On Choosing Blue Paint for the Bathroom

I have been painting for weeks now, the rest of the house is getting polished ivory. That one was a difficult choice too, so many yummy whites - lemon edge and wave's crest, light moss and dove!

On Choosing Blue Paint for the Bathroom


At the home improvement store,
I gather swatches from a wall
of rainbow wonder,
from winter mist to tropical wisp.
I contemplate the accumulated hours,
how best to spend
such brief freedoms
while perched on porcelain.
I leave the store with
a poet’s daydream of description,
lament, high noon, cloud stream,
azure snow and billow.

Most days I am crazy for
the privacy of the privy,
genius we are to have
come up with the chamber pot.
The outhouse, the loo,
no more cholera in our doo!
What a marvel the water closet,
the pull chain’s great purge!

But there are moments
in my box of drywall and wall texture,
on my floor of tile above subfloor,
I crave my musk, soil mingled.
I want to witness the spongey earth soak,
imagine plant roots aquiver,
miss squatting on leaf layer.

As I empty and cleanse,
I yearn to fill up, looking up.
How will I ever choose just one blue.
Here among my scant sampling,
I fan them out-
little rectangles of revery,
celestial dawn and silver brook,
twilight and skywriter.