THE MANY COLORS OF BLOOD
To whoever’s in charge:
please forgive us these many colors of blood,
these colors of allegiance and sorrow,
obligation and betrayal.
Please remember we cannot tell
which color will render us helpless
against ourselves, our unrecognized legacies
of indifference or rage.
Each midnight renews our possibilities;
brief blood of the dawn,
inevitable blood black beyond dusk,
blood as a dye in the tightly woven clothes
lovers wear in the first few moments
of the dreams we never remember,
the ones farthest from waking.
Please forgive us this day the unnamed red
we will only know on sight,
the one echoing in the center of ourselves,
the blood that we must be
and then must not be us.