For Kian--who is every woman's son

This is not the time
for restraint. This is not the time
for speaking in whispers, murmurs,
for silence. Sound
the gong of outrage,
magnify the echoes of woe,
shatter indifference
with the lamentation in dying voices,
let ears split from the cries
of mourning--mother to her son,
oh, bring out the Pieta--
mother, son,
why my son?
Let eyes burn with tears
unshed, let all eyes shed tears--
play a montage
of all that this boy could have been,
paint the sky
with the blood of this child,
this blood splattering the asphalt,
let it not stay confined
to that particular square of street,
consigned to oblivion,
muted by shadow.
Let this child's blood loom
the sight of every man,
let the scarlet spark dead angers.
Let the dead speak.
Let this dead child speak.

Colors, II

Amethyst, I saw first--
rich as to be almost opaque
except for tiny rivulets of Turkish Rose
running through velveteen
violet, shreds of moon
hinting at forgotten lights,
remembered textures: the slate gray softness of sorrow,
the russet rough of bliss, tender billows,
stones merging beneath a teal waterfall.
You, the staunch magnificence in Blue.

I line up Alabaster, Amaranth, Amber, Ambivalence:
lavender and lilac at war, crawling
without stealth, shamelessly creeping
over a helpless bower, your laughter,
golden, echoing across the loveliness
above you, and I, lost
in the suddenness of this discovery--
it is possible to melt and remain whole.

I gather this garden into a bud of colors,
calyx of memory holding up
sheen, shimmer, soul,
the sharpness of remembering,
hovering as the roll of your name
against my tongue:
startling staccatos of starlight
wrap an evening painted sapphire,
and I say: Carmine, Carnelian, Copper, Coral, Crimson
I and my (here, I insert
Obsidian)obession with words
that hardly ever achieves clarity except
in the onyx of your eyes--

Your eyes, my inexhaustible well of color,
story upon story of magic,
submerging my alertness into aquamarine waters.
Here, I swim to the surface,
in my hands:

Verdigris, Vermilion, Viridian.

Variation on a Theme: Psyche and Eros

The lamp is lit--
A glowing paleness, incandescent fire
tamed to obedience by the hand
of its bearer. Love,
I gasp in the swirl of my own
swooning, swale
to steeple, spire,
sky to sky--

you stir.
Breath held, I behold
your sleeping figure, angles and edges
sculpted into soft lines, marking the ends
that flow into more: hard lines, slanting, certain.
Hence limned, you glow brighter
than this lamp.

Your eyes slowly open
and I wait for your wings to flap and bear you away
once more. Instead, you pull me in
and we turn into the lock that we had always been,
that no despair or distance can break,
the unified field
where soul and heart meet.