Primary Colors

Childhood is a series of images, like the blue sky flashing through wide blue eyes, sitting in a blue car seat.

The tickle of creek water on my toes,

watching sunlight dance on its surface, like the amber sap that bleeds out of

maple trunks. I imagine its texture would be sticky on my small hands,

like daffodil drips, passing bunches to the man in the red convertible,

embarrassed because I can’t count his change, but not

because I’m staring at the Asian woman washing chlorine from her body in the showers.

She is beautiful, and I’m not old enough to know what that means.

The skin around her nipples is deep brown, and I wonder if mine

will look that way.

She catches me and smiles. I smile too.

Somewhere along the way people stop smiling back, like they forgot how.

When he puts his tongue in my mouth, it’s like wet sandpaper. I recoil.

I wonder where my passion is: that

multi-faceted entity of babushka dolls and crocodile heads, a presence known in a

trail of sandalwood and patchouli that permeates

encyclopedias and dented globes—but not his hair.

Am I supposed to let her go?

True love is not a feeling of security but of fear; rings don’t mean forever.

Choruses of “when did you know?!” echo over

lace and crockery. I wonder, “when did she decide?”

What future was reflected in that metal band? Was it his face,

vulnerable, expectant, and safe, shrouding the sky she forgot was blue?