The Problem of Describing Color

The Problem of Describing Color

 

If I said- remembering, Papa’s backyard at sunset,

highlighting the guts of fish gushing yellow

Onto the gray packed earth below. 

 

If I said, yellow unclean walls

of an isolated, abandoned nursery,

peeling off in orange patches

in the story by Charlotte Gilman.

 

If I said caution, if I said sulphurous fumes pluming

 

Or specks of pollen covering everything like a plague

on a sticky, spring-y gust in Mississippi

 

If I said, her favorite flowers are yellow daisies,

 

If she tells me it’s the most beautiful word

Repeating it until it’s abhorred-

           

Aged teeth, grin-

 

(how could you believe a thing

            from that mouth?)

 

Yellow, I said. Sudden, yellow.