Daddy is a painter, by Luciana Francis

and he says things using colours
instead of words.

He creates collages with shapes –
his canvases are portraits, landscapes

of an abstract world.
But daddy can also paint

without holding a brush.
He paints by sowing seeds,

by trimming the dormant shrubs.
He paints by dutifully feeding

the roses.
He paints a painting so green

that bees and butterflies can join in,
along with the many birds

that sing as we play.
Daddy is a painter,

and every year
he paints me a garden.

*

Luciana Francis, originally from São Paulo, Brazil, moved to the UK in 1998. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Travel Writing (Against the Grain Poetry Press), showcases time as distance, and poet as time-traveller. Her poetry has been shortlisted for The Bridport Prize, and it appears in Magma, Butcher’s Dog and The London Magazine.