Color- A New Poem.

My thoughts have been emerging most easily in poems, lately. Here's a new one.

Color

Stop,
she said.
The dog might bite you.
but I walked through the door
anyway
as softly as I could
and I stood there
and I waited.

It always makes me catch my breath
an error
a step where I shouldn't have made one.

He watches the tiniest muscles
in their faces. 
A flex in the jaw, 
love and desire in the flaring of a nostril.
I look at his hands, 
a ripple of muscles and tendons
   I see unbearable sorrow.

We try to be brave and good. 
I want to flip tables.
I want to burn the house down. 

I will hate the day that I can't hear his laugh. 
For now, I stop and listen, 
as though from across the galaxy: 
I hear it. 

She sat across from me,
tapping her chin with her pen.
In our culture, we wear black to show we are suffering,
she told me.

And yes — we wore color, it's true
Bits of color under tall trees.
   But oh- how we were suffering.