paints again

bring your questions

bring them in baskets and pockets and bring them dead or alive

bring your people

bring them in books and dreams and history and

bring your brothers

bring them in snow clothes and any kind of hat and bring them hungry

but don't bring your mother. 

Don't bring your mother when you're angry, when you're hurt, 

                                                        when she's angry, when she's hurt,

and don't bring your father when he's remarried and she's nice but not yours

don't bring her. 

They can stay outside for another minute or two 

while we paint.

the pain of what isn't 

we forget it in the colors.

colors empty spaces

because 

colors. it's easier in colors

drop drop drop drop

lavender. lavender. lavender air, it tasted of purple dreams and my mom's hands, and allergies

maroon tells me we had roses, they were deep, deep enough for my eyes and I was six. and I was looking

But roses I had one on my dress and some in a vase and enough growing along the street for a thousand Sundays.

I was once addicted to color and the tastes of phrases when they'd roll over & under my tongue

                                                                     (you were always tomorrow-colored and words about you were my preference)

those days I miss them in some ways.

the real problem, I said, is that someone got tired of pencils and poetry was labeled an English-class thing. 

those days were fierce and I named them high school

"like the fish pond in my backyard your eyes reflect the stars," I said. but it was my grandpa's fish pond

and I was always talking to a someone who didn't love me back or who I didn't love or who I didn't know.

now you color my todays.

You are the paint and mostly I taste sweet blanket coatings 

of indigo and greens and kind yellows

tastes of snuggling and our wolf puppy, and your teasing. 

how does it taste, a day staying busy while you're in class?

warm mahogany piano and olives eaten too many at a time, 

and bare feet on hard wood and light blue walls.

(those colors are prettier than the days but sometimes they are not)

...

You can come in now, mom,

and you can come in now, dad and new wife.

This will take me some time. I'm sorry for my insensitivity. I can carve out a new space for all of us, it's just taking some rearranging of furniture and paint and details of my world

Bring yourself and sit down while I get ready and find a place for myself 

in my world. I’ll come in slowly, my fingers will drum the cup I hold and the room will slowly begin to taste like my hot lemon water, and maybe I could become comfortable, again…