Olive and Ash

Sangria red brushes her cheeks;

wine painting her lips like a collage of petaled rose.


White is a wedding dress and teary vows.


An olive skin marks her canvas

as she treads with emerald eyes peering,

a copper nebula for an isis.


She is the implosion of a star.

A halo of blue-burning sulfur.

Ash ground between her fingernails…

from the year her home was mistaken for

an ink well.


Now the blood of a nation lingers in her breath.

A scent of Cointreau hinted: 

orange slices and chocolate served at 

(now leggless) coffee tables

(beside armless mugs).


She is a golden

sun edging up to the horizon.

White is the silence of an altar and

the sound of a beating chest.


She is both solace and sacrifice;

wife to man and widow of a country.


She is white and asphalt;

Olive and lime;

honey-sweet laughter to a half-finished canvas:

she is the artist, 

the artwork,

the palette 

and the brush.