Painting the Kitchen

After painting the ceiling it's the kitchen walls
Two coats, four hour gap.
Colour? Porcelain.
Porcelain? What kind of a colour is that?
One of these off white colours - the new magnolia.
I remember my mother putting green on our kitchen wall
and red and blue. Real colours. Real taste.
I know, can't do that now. Whites, off whites, creams
Invented names to make them seem better
but still insipid, drab, bland, tame, vapid.
Vapid? A thesaurus is a wonderful thing.
Anyway that end wall would be perfect
for a Last Supper or a Last Judgement.
I saw remains of a wonderful Last Judgement,
one of Buffalmacco's frescoes
in the Camposanto, in Pisa last September.
Had been covered over of course
like all Last Judgements -
still a few glimpses left.
Hell and the devils a real work of art.
Imagine . . .