Red
Maybe I’ll know another year has passed
If I happen upon the right amount
Of darkness to see the Perseids brush
Away the stars’ timeless paralysis.
We know the universe is expanding
Because light shifts into the red spectrum
As celestial bodies move outwards
Relative to stationary observers.
Red is the incubator of distance.
Crabapples transpose into teal endings -
Amputated organs that plummet red
But cannot light themselves from within
And dissolve. I know I’ve missed your birthday
Because the grocers are stocking pumpkins,
But they’re always the wrong colour for grief.
Mushrooms rise in fairy rings from the mulch.
Night channel static crackles like fish bones.
I scrunch my eyelids to blanket myself in red
.Oceans of lightyears prickle through my skin.
Everything diffuses. Everything collects space
And you, too, should be a travelling light.
A dying streetlamp glimmers yellow-red,
Cupped by cataract hands of drizzled haze,
And for a moment I recall your soul.
