Abigail's Barometer

Upstairs, she starts the painting turquoise,
and at the bottom pencils in a murky bog.

You can say that Abigail deals with pigment,
talking to them as if they're resurrected memories.

For magenta, she dips into the hat box
where she keeps her tubes and carving knives

those used for cutting turnips,
those for cheating hearts.

In Prussian blue she paints the bonnet,
she lost at 17, and could have no way of guessing

how in mish-mash art it would turn up again.
So, too,the lying lips she's pickled in a cellar jar.

You can say the lady has her lucid moments.
As vanes that respond to systems, it depends on the weather.

Such the case of wayward Vertle, who on a gray November day,
with slight of hand, she spiked his drink and in the bog had him buried.