she wore yellow

she wore yellow

Funny how the mind works,

holding onto memories like

the first time my curious fingers

popped

a milkweed pod

o p e n

to find the most exquisite

silk

inside

specked

with seeds

for contrast

or

“the Cure” song that played in the

tape-deck

after my first kiss

and

where I sat in homeroom, alphabetically of course,

in front of Stratton and diagonal from Ward.

Tiki Ward

What a great name, I thought,

like Gilda

or

Lakshmi

or

Daizy-with-a-‘z’

Tiki was cool.

And pretty.

And fun.

And… odd, like her name.

And it wasn’t envy I felt, though I’d easily feel

jealous

of other girls who had

the cool

and

the fun

I lacked.

Towards her, I just felt

d e l i g h t .

She’d come in often after the bell

without the “oh-god-I’m-late” strained face.

No

She’d

blow

in

like

a

warm

breeze

s m i l i n g w i d e ,

daring

our dreary faces to turn

UP.

Most of us drawn down w a r d -

broken

pencils

and notebooks

and

tests…

our academic gravity

But she seemed to

f l o a t

above the monotony.

She had learned

the Art of Lightening Up

already.

Maybe I did envy that

just

a

little…

My memory can’t grasp if it was

a Monday or a Friday

or a day smeared into the middle

like mustard

but it was the morning, in homeroom.

I was the

late

one

this

time

hurried

and

quite

w o r r i e d

carrying books on my back

An even heavier scowl

on my face

hauling it all to

my designated

spot,

that desk-chair combo,

waiting

coldly for me,

a jaundiced stare….

Tiki smiled her “my-family-can’t-afford-braces- - -good”

s M i L e

my stern edges, melted

just

a

little…

This toothy crescent moon held a subtle

M I S C H I E F

eyes dancing as if to say

“there’s so much more than this,

just you wait.”

Her

hand-

me-

down

cardigan,

the color of

s t a r s

and

s u n flowers.

“I like your sweater, you look good in yellow”

I say

sliding sideways, willingly,

into the shackles of my chair-desk.

“Oh thanks!” beaming now, sun

“I feel bad for this color sometimes, you know?”

She tugs at the cloth

as

if to

perk it

UP !

“No one really wears it that much, but..

it’s so

c h e e r f u l

don’t you think?”

I pause, having never considered a color to have

f e e l i n g s before.

The concept only seemed more proof:

this girl knows the world in a way that most of us are

u n a w a r e ,

this girl knows she’s the stuff of

s t a r d u s t

and

d r e a m s,

this girl

knows…

“I guess” I chuckle,

“never thought of it that way.”

“Well” she sighed “it’s cool cuz

it just means

I get to

love it

and

wear it

even more,

you know,

to make up for those who

d o n ’t. ”

Well, there it was;

not only could this girl

smile through any pain,

or so it seemed,

and

b r i g h t e n

the dullest room,

she also knew how to LOVE

the most

perplexing

color

the one that’s both

the

loneliest

and

brightest

as if it were

as real as a daffodil

as alive as a butterfly

And sometimes when

the tangy gold

from a

paint

dollop

shines

back at me from coarse paper

or

as I pull my yellow mixing bowl

from the cupboard

on a

b a n a n a pancake

Saturday

morning

and

the way my fingertips look

after they’ve dabbled in

\ d a n d e l i o n medicine \

Sometimes those shades,

bold like summer-break sunshine

zip me back to that day

/ 1993, maybe? /

a few moments shared

with that curious girl

to my

left

in homeroom

who wore YELLOW.

— for Tiki Ward - happy birthday, brave one