Color of quick flame
and creeping destruction.
Color of arched monarch wings under
a bright flare of bird throat flashing
through green leaves as color curls around
a rim of sky when the closest star breaks.
Tiger stripe blazing as forests’ roots
thrust into loam lumping along underfoot.
The salamander eating its own sloughed skin slow,
ripening like a squash from spring green to spice strut.
Strutting across ice, knee-less king and the brilliant billed
macaroni, whose tufts glare over glaciers in Chile,
where the conure and cock-of-the-rock moult flames
onto a bridge of marigolds pom-pomming over the River Styx.
Color of theory, revolution, poison, and warning.
Color of duck feet flapping past traffic cones.
Sherbet dripping drips before licks can capture them
in sun hotter these days than history.
Color of cheetahs’ tail flicks, clown fish crackers
and robins’ puffed chests.
Color of California poppies waving bravely
at birds of paradise flying over truckloads of carrots
belching diesel sunsets on their way to Canada.
Color of male golden toads,
probiscus monkey,
false coralsnakes,
reefs lost
and gone forever
dreadful sorry,
clementine.
