Sepia, jaundice, no—

bathwater after 

 

the last dusty child 

has been lifted 

 

and wrapped.

A meteorologist 

 

drags her pen 

across the stratum: 

 

smoke layer, fog, 

smoke, cloud layer, 

 

more smoke—

and it gets harder 

 

to imagine 

robin’s egg, 

 

Wedgewood,

iris, sea glass, 

 

the nose of a plane 

pushing out

 

above the gloom. 

My eyes—who

 

insist they know

something about 

 

time—ache

with the effort 

 

to draw in 

noon’s light. 

 

If depression 

were a color . . .

 

Cornea, macula, 

retina, lens.

 

How much longer

can this last?

 

Even the headlines

are dealing in 

 

rhyme: foreboding, 

orange, smoke-

 

choked skies.

I study the candle

 

flickering on my desk—

black wick anchoring

 

its tiny sun,

like a thumbtack

 

skewers memory 

to a map. I will 

 

my body to welcome 

its glow, to carry 

 

that shimmer 

in my cells—for as 

 

long as it takes—

as I did you, Love, 

 

all those years 

you were gone.