Yellow

I went to my thesaurus

to find a word,

a word I could use

in place of yellow.

I was trying to write a poem

without using the letter ‘e.’

A constraint I sometimes practice.

The thesaurus showed me—Timorous—

I thought —this is kind of how I see fish

when I look at a wide-mouth Mason jar.

Especially the Large Mouth Bass,

or one of those giant catfish

I could fit my forearm into

its gapping hole of a mouth.

Puzzled by how a flame flickers,

how it ignites into a raging fire

how it can take on many forms—how

it loves to be fanned,

and constantly fed—how

and over time peters out

but never really gone—just silent

and words like weird,

cannot be said anymore, or so, I’ve heard.

—I thought this to be strange,

so back to the thesaurus

to find an alternate word for weird;

strange bizarre peculiar unusual eccentric

queer abnormal freaky curious 0dd uncanny.

I guess these and others are forbidden too.

How is this different from banning books

if all the adjectives are removed from speech?

—What language do you speak? —I asked,

a friend the night before the fire went out.

It was really weird to me,

that my friend

who was perfectly healthy

drafting a poem one day,

then suddenly dies

sitting by the fire during the night.

A blanket on his knees,

his favorite chair, pen in hand

and not a word on the page.