Rothko Chapel, a Pilgrimage

The road tells us we are close. Flat, it allows in a scent of salt grass
even through closed windows & a view of wine cups— 
wildflowers the color of Christ’s blood at Communion; lyre-leaf sage
in pale heliotrope & obedient plants—fancy soldiers standing fuchsia 

at attention. Closer still pecan trees wave their complications, hiding 
plagiarist mockingbirds. Inside the city, magnolias offer peau-de-soie  
petals we must not touch. At last there, past the pool’s reflection of a broken 
obelisk (the painter himself?) we may enter the chapel’s octagon, its surprise 

of austerity, its paintings that pull you into a darkness some will call
black, but we agree is purple, nuanced like the martins outside but without 
their seeming cheer. Still, for us, a sense of well-being—an unspeakable 
abstraction felt in our blood, a wordless journey into art the painter 
never saw in this space; all while seated on a bench under a sun, diffused.  
Fourteen works that appear alike but are not. They are not the same. Look.

CECILLE MARCATO

Cecille Marcato (she/her) is a poet and cartoonist in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Leon, South Florida Poetry Journal, Free State Review, Naugatuck River Review, Husk, Solstice, and Slipstream. She holds degrees in literature and design and graduated from the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.