And he makes his hand into a soft gun
       

I met you on a red day, a day that grew fins
at noon and swam toward the horizon, the moon

and one splintered star, the next day was blue
with tusks and furrowed skin so I rode the bus

to the market to listen to the man who reads
the dictionary to the birds, in rain or sun,

at dusk I phoned you and the day turned glabrous,
we went to a movie on a green day, a day

as opalescent as litchi, a movie about a man
without paper who ties his son to a kite frame,

their kite is barred from the great contest, but
his son discovers a passage to Indiana,

on a yellow day we hiked over the ghost
of a tallgrass prairie, waded a stream, climbed

a hillock and spread out a pony blanket
to watch the day migrate north for autumn,

you trained an orange day to spin a web
so we could lose ourselves in perilous orbits,

we made love on a black day, a day specked
with whooping children, hooded and masked, bursting

through school doors, skipping and firing
their Uzis and Colts into the sweet spring air,

I've quarantined our last kiss, we kissed last
at night on a day that clutched a bouquet

of heat-seeking violets to its chest, at dawn
you sang the mysteries through the beads of my spine,

the day you left was white and the white day's
white eyes swam to opposite sides of the planet

on an indigo day, a day that wore a red nose,
I stayed at home to implore my house to grow

a day with a small door, a door the size
of a day helplessly bent to hold us tight.

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Copyright © 2013 Peter Jay Shippy All rights reserved
from A Spell of Songs
saturnalia books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission