《 Listen Up! 》

pleased to meet you Yellow, my name is Blue.

you came swiftly across the sea.
i hovered there.
thirty miles outside of Galapagos,
placed myself in the screams of rival winds.

i hovered there for years alone
feeding on everything blue,
shark fins, sea spray,
desire, memory and floating blueberries.

but you came swiftly across the sea
took away my death (though i guarded it).
held my defeat by the neck and outsmarted it.
the ice in my breath floated before you
a crystal field of all my fears...

i was just getting used to the blueberries.

but you spun that warm ginger light.
sent it spilling from the gold blaze of gasoline eyes.
melted my breathe.
melted the soloist.
melted the pumping thing inside.

you said, "hello Blue, my name is Yellow."
and i said...."wa. wow."

i was stricken, i was struck
i was a bad joke about a duck who was down
that no one ever laughs at-

but Yellow, she laughs-she's a laugher
and she's not even drunk!
i say Yeah Yeah!
"i want to be something ridiculous and wonderful and Yellow"
she says, "do you mean like margarine?"

no, i mean i want your firecracker smile Yellow,
i want your jacaranda kiss Yellow,
i want your timelessness
inside my eyeballs Yellow.

the way snow falls to the earth,
Yellow whispers to Blue -
"would you be Green with me forever?"

"i do. i do. i do...."

-derrick c. brown