The Rainbow-Maker

By Christopher Brean Murray

His pigment box rattled.
His brushes bristled
in the morning sun.
Rain had come & gone.
It had sent him a missive
in multi-colored script
inviting him to invent.
He first fashioned
one for a puddle:
a twisted bow
with a sheer glint
that conjured a harp thrown
down a stairwell
into a pile of pillows
as orange rinds spritzed the air
with nectar. He then
constructed an emerald bridge
traversed by crimson gnomes
who farted & twerked
as cobalt waves
swelled & shattered.
Something darker
brewed inside him.
He steeped in it
until a fat cloud silvered
& a moose scraped the turf
with its hoof. He zagged
his stylus across the sky
which bled magenta angels
with obsidian wings.
One landed at the center
of a turquoise blossom.
He scattered bows
across the convex face
of the dewdrop
the angel sipped.
She glimpsed a flaming chariot
traversing the sky’s reflection
as a toucan alighted
on a russet branch.
A waxwing’s tail
painted an oak trunk pink
& someone spilled burgundy
on the Pope’s new cassock.
Poppies looked on
too drunk to help.
A lime Lamborghini
roared past the scene
& the driver flicked
a mauve cigarette
into a pile of dead leaves.
A smoke-wisp curled
but when no flame followed
the maker knew
his work was done.
He blew cerulean powder
at the red-eyed rabbits
& scaled a sycamore
toward his indigo bike
parked in charcoal branches.

—

About Author

Christopher Brean Murray’s book, Black Observatory (Milkweed Editions), was chosen by Dana Levin as the winner of the 2022 Jake Adam York Prize. It was listed by The New York Public Library as one of the Best Books of 2023. Murray served as online poetry editor of Gulf Coast, and his poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. He lives in Houston, TX. You find Christopher on Facebook or at his website christopherbreanmurray.com