Colors

come on the brow of the rain

sky to grass

sky gray-blue, black clouds

mirage of azure pools beneath my feet;

the yellow-orange flames dancing

melon, red as wagons, sun-sliced corncobs

clouds pure as butter, blinding sun.

Colors

appeared in my sky

like God unpacked them from his suitcase—

dash of sunset, brown of acorn

forest floor, sparkling creek

I was among the colors in the evening

I was the sister of a naked boy

who escaped and fled.

Police lights’ colors blinked

red and blue gumballs

I was sitting alone in my daddy’s car with Twinkies

watching the paperback people gape

my naked brother, bathed in police lights

draped himself in colors

wearing a quilted picnic blanket

everyone stared

as though nakedness were a color

born of the sun.

Colors

red pajamas, white doorway

dirty-yellow hair, shower-damp

he was asleep when I touched his hair

in the early morning

when paper darkness crumpled

so slow, unfolding into light

I snipped a lock of his hair

glued it to his favorite orange spool

scrawled on his initials

and let it fall behind my nightstand.

I guess he never knew

for he had not yet awoken

into that space where we

discover ourselves black and white

and all the world in colors.

Colors

children’s drawings stuffed in basement boxes

faded crayons in cardboard boxes

crayons ran in desperate circles

across paper and walls

till they cracked, broken.

We drew shapes of chaos

sunshine pizzas

and people, straight as numbers,

with their arms in the air.

Now these colors

appear before my canvas

and I feel just like a color in the rain

quivering rainbow

fading faster the harder it shines

for its summer hour.

But life may find me running

like a naked boy by a creek

searching for colors in the water

as I dissolve from earth, by and by,

reaching the sky.

The sun-orb, a whirl of endless light

laughs at us, as we run,

bits of broken shadow in the grass.