His room was a sickly dual-tone of crimson and charcoal, like an Untitled Rothko, the colours bleeding into each other horribly and then rather serenely. The overall effect was overwhelmingly unapologetic but it grew on you like a wart on your nose you didn't realise it was a part of your identity until one day it simply was. His room was his identity. Fiercely bold, avant-garde but never monotonous. He was red, he was black, he was bored, and he was fire. At least to me he seemed like fire. A tornado of fire that burned all in its wake leaving only the wretched brightness of annihilation. His room was where he charmed and disarmed us. We were his playthings. Nobody plays with fire and leaves unscarred. The fire soon seeps into chard and soot. The colours of his soul, his aura, and probably his heart if he didn't stop smoking.
The SleepingI have imagined all this:In 1940 my parents were in loveAnd living in the loft on West 10thAbove Mark Rothko who painted cabbage rosesOn their bedroom walls the night they got married.I can guess why he did it.My mother’s hair was the color of yellow applesAnd she wore a velvet hat with her pajamas.I was not born yet. I was remote as starlight.It is hard for me to imagine thatMy parents made love in a roomful of rosesAnd I wasn’t there.But now I am. My mother is blushing.This is the wonderful thing about art.It can bring back the dead. It can wake the sleepingAs it might have late that nightWhen my father and mother made love above RothkoWho lay in the dark thinking Roses, Roses, Roses.