The Denim Jacket

One half hour in May
2019 deepening as if
Expressive of a process
Like cancellation but
Undergone by storms
The green dominant in
Windows of the science
Library among several
Places I recorded this

How to say this green
Color rare in nature
Apart from one reaction
Having almost no chance
The green of leaves
In the streetlight turned
Last night as you slept
Bright yellow threshing fat
Segments of illuminated rain

I can’t tell if it’s my book
On consciousness or pictures
Of a dress gone viral
Being white gold to some
Blue black to others but
I need you to know in case
I have to part out
The earth-tone quilt creeping
Under the deaf cabin

Whenever I spoke of
The hungry charging
Phones in the square
Twice-named dogs miming
Enclosures that were just
Correlation between property
Line and pain right here
In the neck the pain
My face expressed

Listening for the key to fall
From great music or reading
The play considered best
How it made drama
Represent failure to act
I was happy this way
Stylized weeping broke
Up content throughout
The northern ballads

Terms of lament betrayed like
Musicality across languages
The extremes touched because
Strength of feeling curved it
Given crayons now
Children would draw screens
And you among them
Hands held out dumbly
Beneath a senseless tap

Toward midnight you cried
Out for a green coat I’m
Not sure we own but
I comforted you and went
Back to my room probably
The dream was in color
One quality of duty is
To remember it marks
The perimeter of waking

At the window there
I am again the green
More varied in motion
Leaves and needles alert
But unconcerned oh
Wow some pollen
Bearing structure in the pine
Opening now pale gold
Clouds the annual breeze