There is No Trouble Describing Your Color

This poem was inspired by Robert Hass’s “The Problem of Describing Color”.

If I said—remember the deepened sky.

The echo of blue from the police car,

on its seemingly endless tour down Kent Street;

weekend nights.

If I said, shocked blue crystal

from the scene in the movie watched before a first kiss,

when a quickened motion lent to unraveling.

If I said denim, if I said ink-stained skin—

or the whispered paleness from the fading ice cream trailer lights.

Of our lips dancing on the edge, the way your voice

painted an ocean horizon over the strip mall parking lot.

Of the sweet water, you filled the brim of my cup

with the blue promise that more is possible.

Blue, I said. Swollen, blue.