Yellow Studio

Yellow Studio

Yellow Studio

Vuillard\'s studio, Château des Clayes . . .
The corner is hard to judge
where the paintings in the painting are pinned
on the yellow wall (the mise en abyme
will be the end of me)

in this gleaming Institute of Donors,
this imperial temple
raised from the muck and blood
of the stockyards, out of hog-squeal
and cost-efficient slaughter

at the end of the Millennium Park
where the towers crowd and crane
in an ogre\'s silver egg,
the concentration of capital
in a cunning device.

I stare with nostalgia, with homesickness
into Vuillard\'s yellow studio
and I know the place
absolutely, it is that humane
heaven of drapes and turpentine

where I shall at last lie down
on the lumpy mattress
with the stripy bedspread
below the little skylight —
my sweet, autarchic rest.