Felony in Yellow
This is a yellow I’d go to hell for murder and lie for and even marry. Autumn demands its own geography archipelagos, rituals and inventions. It must be Thursday in Rome or Prague. Rain and history gouged out the size of a canvas or door into air amber, persistent as berries ripening in early autumn. Apple dawn. Apple noon. There are only transitions of necessity. They break like paper bridges. Absolution in increments of yellow. Lampshades, opera shawls, pieces of lace. Consider the subtle paradox of planning suicide while buying antiques and calla lilies. The serial killer dreams of Mother carrying baskets of sea-blue towels and just-picked apples, skin translucent as infants. It’s an image to remember with a knife. He’ll tattoo this to a six- year-old. Suzanne. Danielle. This is why lamps were devised prayers and calendars and the M-16. This is why we fear the plaza and the embrace mouth to ochre mouth. I call you dog and you bark. Love is a contagion. Concubines know this rinsing ginger from their hair on October afternoons elongating like a woman in a coma or her eighth year of marriage. This is no journey, she thinks, startled. It’s a felony. We must eat apples electric light bulb yellow. How they sting. It’s an interior tattoo and road map to where we really live. It’s how we send ourselves to prison camps. There are only wind-sampled maple leaves you see in the dark like candles and fireworks. Wrap me in rags. Tell me I’m beautiful. There is cinnamon in the well. Small cities float at the edge. It’s a day to bathe in almond. Still yellow water. Pond under cathedral bells. I could close you like a pocket mirror. I could wear you like a scar.
