The Gender and Color of Love

for J.

Attempting to list colors in the she-and-he

of you, there was no color you could be.

Then there was that great offender –

that divisive strange abstraction “gender”:

is or was there anybody you could call

yourself you can remember? I recall the very

essence of you in my arms. Minutes after

you arrived, I told (not asked) you to take

all your clothes off. You unembarrassedly did –

or anyway, in such a trance of unbelieving,

that to rid yourself of trappings seemed

the only thing to do. And it hadn’t passed

you that my voice was one that you could hear,

and that to hear it seemed to lessen fear.

So goes the self-approval whose removal I’d

soon need to undergo as deeply and completely

as I had delighted in your sweet arrival. We

were talking about mutual survival. Which

apparently depended upon love. Is love

a glove you put on or take off? I suggested

you could love as many or as much of anything

or anyone as it befell you to pursue. None

of that would trap you, not if it was love. You

looked me in the eye. “You sure that’s true?”

I took you in my arms again, as if to say what

then I said, “well, look at me and you.” “What

colors then are you?” you replied. “Oh, any

colors you decide.” I think, though, that I lied.

Act Three - Guy Kettelhack - Poetry & Ephemera