Blue

The nerve of me, to profess love for a hue!
When I was twenty-two, I saw through
the dramatic orange crackling of everything
and I just wanted to go into the fire, to meet you.

I don’t look to you for rescue, oh no –
I want to arrive at your brush like a blank canvas.
At thirty-three I rattled my white bones
and danced with the spirit of blackness

like a cat of nine lives. I wanted no lies nor spring.
How could I be happy with this green,
the loudest of them all, the irritating simpleton.
I cracked open into redness at the age of thirteen

like an impatient watermelon, and I reaped a scarecrow
and soft buttercups. Still I am without your touch.
But how do I get out of dawdling in this yellow
without your touch. The years stack up like brown bricks. At last

when I find you, not beneath the ocean nor above the sky,
but sleeping in the cornflower field of my palm, these veins
near the heart line – an atlas, a knowledge, an untouchable presence,
I’d smile, and know you have always been mine.