Christian Ruiz Berman, Oort Cloud, 2017 Acrylic on hydrocal forms Approximately 7" each

Christian Ruiz Berman, Oort Cloud, 2017
Acrylic on hydrocal forms
Approximately 7" each

 

Hyacinth is two faces of unequal blush turned away from each other

hyacinth is a stone that is red orange, is a flower that is blue purple

hyacinth is a color that is either red orange or blue purple

hyacinth is a bulbous plant native to Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran

                  is composed of modular star flowers pinned too close together to suit a metaphor
of petalled constellations

                  each flower is a word permuted, petals chosen, with sense in mind—chain, chin,
hint, hitch, yacht, inch

                  is fashionable in the 18th century, 2000 Dutch-processed cultivars

                  is so numerous, dripping off wooden ships and accreting between the wax paper
lining of chocolate boxes

                  is a cluster of fraying floss poked through by a spike, its color is cotton
candy melted to viscous sugar strand

                  is a difficult flower to dry, the cone shape requires disassembling before pressing to
one plane between papers, parting the flowers like curls on a head, a tender scalp shines
through

                  is a man named for a flower died flowerlike

                  is a lover of Apollo, coveted by Zephyrus, a man (so young still, all of him a candle
pulled from wax, smooth and un-calloused, still cooling) caught in the ravage of a jealous
wind, died as a flower, the neck one of many clipped stems

                  a disrupted texture

                  unearthing cinch if you are loose with your c’s, acid if you let t’s slip to d’s, or akin, if
the c become k, tith is not a word, nor is it contained in hyacinth, but it should be both—a
harvest with something left out, a synonym for gleaning

                  stone facets decoupaged in sculptured tissues, petals are translucent with the
application of paste

                  the distinct hue of each varietal carries its own scent

                  devout repetition dissolving to sound

                  hyacinth, hi-a-sin-th is (in syllables) a greeting to a little sin caught in my teeth

                  is the asymmetry of the face of my beloved, freshly shaven, pieces of cotton tacked
to the clumsy places, hy-a-cinth

 

Kelly Hoffer

 

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