PIET MONDRIAN’S FLOWERS

There once was a man who defended the line
in its purest and simplest state. No trying
to appear three dimensional, no secondary colours,
just pure composition. To get at the most essential
state of things. He believed in this
as in a religion, bored his friends with his endless remonstrations,
disciplined schoolchildren according to the vertical line
and the horizontal line.

He made his whole habitat a realm of geometry.
He roused in the morning with square pillow marks on his square cheek,
pushed toothpaste from a square tube on a square toothbrush he’d fashioned himself,
ate square fried eggs on square toast on square white plates adorned with lines,
black and straight.

When he died,
they found in a little square box
under his square bed,
several hundred watercolour flowers,
each one neatly folded
in four equilateral parts.