Casualties of Color

Photo by Dawn Sanborn

Casualties of Color

 

 

Year after year

in silver cuffs that chained me

and not you

So I once thought...

Instead, you're gone; torment fades,

yellowed newsprint upon which I worked.

Reading the obituaries but never finding

my name...

...only yours

in a story that never...ends.

 

Embedded deeper than the scar

or the tip of a steely blade

are the colors of that night,

the three that remained

while all others

drained.

 

Red plaid shirt, cut in the back,

union of phalanges and vertebrae,

hand slowly dripping crimson,

mine?

Warm, wet,
 coated in mittens of blood,

frozen

unable to feel

unable to grasp

the reality

of what just occurred.

 

Droplets on the floor,

splattering,

mirroring...

lights of the band

twirling...

like a disco ball

illuminating the way

to the squad cars squealing

into your laughter,

lingering...still.

 

Red swirls with black,

taffeta-dance on my face,

ebony mascara, streaked

with lucid tears.

 

Stands of your now-invisible hair

restraining me.

Shine of the cop's shoes

reflections in a badge,

the black hole into which I fall,

dancing no more.

Later seeking

someone

to protect and to serve,

only to find his gun at my head

and an eye swollen and ...

 

Black

...opens to white.

An ambulance.

It's sheets; uniforms.

White is the emergency room.

Clock's face taunting me,

more black;

not the stroke of midnight yet,

but can't it all disappear?

Face down in gowns of white,

red gone, draped

just a living corpse in snow,

firmly planted

where flowers used to grow.

 

~~

 

I walk there

sometimes

amidst the fun house

and the horror show,

rollercoaster rides,

bungee cords.

I touch everything I can:

cotton candy in pink and blue,

donuts sugared and brown,

snow cones made of rainbow hues.

 

Then I leave the shades

of that night

behind

like trash on the ground

 littering the asphalt,

too dark to walk upon

ever again.

 

Michelle Fimon

©2011