RED

Red. So red you pulse like blood. Red hair
and sometimes flush. You turn scarlet through
carmine to maroon and now your 
hue's darker, more complex a shade,
enough to make pickets weep and dictators fall
like a house.


But more, so more
red. Redder than clouds at dawn
or Turner's sunset. You are fringed crimson,
areola of amaranth, a bruise
drawn daily on your skin through which
you blaze puce by cerise by rust by red.