Color War

You can call it her life’s work –
interpolating color: the slaps of it
she must put up with and transmute into
caresses – every fresh inevitable time
another pigment bests her expectations,

undermines her certainty that pink
cannot be orange, or that purple always
bellows when it stumbles into yellow.
She generally wears dark gray in hopes
she’ll one day get along with everything,

although she never does. Was not
diplomacy of the minutest delicacy needed
when she last attempted to excuse herself
in front of hues who steadfastly refused
to lose a photon of chromatic rage –

when all she wanted was the respite
of a little beige? Perhaps it’s time to turn
the page. But what would she do then?
She couldn’t face not being beaten silly
and illuminated in the color war again.


 
 
 
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