Paint in her hair, arms splotchy with color,
the girl swirls her brush in every color.

My lovers beard is raven-wing black. His teeth,
bright as sun-bleached bone. His eyes, sea-color.

Would you want The Giver’s world — safe from war
and pain, but no sex, family, color?

My daughter crayons her dad brown. He snaps,
I’m not Obama. Prickly about color.

Peachy, pink-tinged faces, though Irish and
Italians are white now. Jews, maybe. Color

a construct, not the rose or tawny tones
in skin. Some racists claim not to see color.

Orange kitten nests on lime, fuchsia, and
violet rags. Cacophony of color.

The past bleeding forward like ink. Our dead
present with us as memory, color.

I love Chagalls doors into dream. OKeeffes
vulvic blooms. The Fauves unruly color.

You looked weird, Mom. The kids giggle at my
black lipstick and crimson Krazy Kolor.

Alison Stone has published six full-length collections, Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, a book of collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. A sixth, in 2019. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and many other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded Poetrys Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterlys Madeline Sadin Award. She was recently Writer in Residence at LitSpace St. Pete. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot. A licensed psychotherapist, she has private practices in NYC and Nyack. www.stonepoetry.org www.stonetarot.com