The Splash

This painting, by David Hockney,

sold for twenty-five million –

so bright

but snap-frozen of feeling.

I see something disappearing.

It sprang from the springboard –

perhaps the lost lover of the painter –

pushed into oblivion

by a perpetrator

who retreats south-east;

or maybe it’s that elusive thing called meaning.

Does he who bought the painting

understand the price of everything –

so much for water, this for sky –

and the value of nothing?