On a day too hot for trousers

      He learnt how
    to read sheep’s
  vertebrae as if
they were
figurative
paintings. I-
  dentified the
    stylistic attributes,
      named them after
        reptiles. Now it
          seems he’s working
        backwards—last
      time I saw him he
    told me how the
  painterly qualities
in Poussin’s Et in
Arcadia Ego can be
  summarised using
    only three lizards
      & a carpet snake.