for Eve
Some people love all the colors, not only the safe ones.
Even orange. Scar of rust, shrill neon strobe…
The color that demands, that can’t help itself—
Roe. Iodine. Wildfire haze. Some people don’t turn away
from what spreads. What lingers. The cut tree’s
brilliant fungus. Some people kneel to touch.
To love a color that doesn’t apologize.
Fluorescent lure, the rippled gasp of gills.
The oriole we hush for; streak of hawk.
Some people hold an openness
to both burn and beauty. To the daylily
flaring and guttering. To translate pain.
Oilslick on asphalt. Ranks of cones narrowing the road.
Some people aren’t afraid to love all
the colors. Some people.
Some people aren’t afraid to love.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 3.
Jessie Brown has two short collections, Lucky (Anabiosis Press) and What We Don’t Know We Know (Finishing Line), as well as poems and translations in various journals, including Comstock Review, Pensive, American Poetry Review, New Madrid, Full Bleed, Minerva Rising and others. A native of Massachusetts, she teaches in the Boston area, and collaborates on interdisciplinary projects with poetry and the visual arts.
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