Poem for Sunday, October 18, 2009

Prisms

Each breath, and our lungs are more crystallized. 

     Inhale--more prisms form, frigid, reflecting

the spectrum of light, wanderlust, embracing directions

and fractions of directions. Violet sucked down the

sewer. Red pulsating through a telephone wire. White

     absorbed in nitrogen. Indigo in me and you.

This is the only way we can see the world, see each

other. This is how we communicate--trapping

each other's thoughts in a pitcher of lemonade by

     a porch swing in Arkansas. This is, this is.

Please breathe in these colors: my obsequious

aura, yellow and trembling; your crochet needle, argent

and buried with bones; the rainbow after the storm

     that destroyed our heritage. This is the only way

we can

      see.