the ballad of colors

you stand in front of the cracked porcelain sink

bleary blue eyes in a grey mirror

your weary shoulders hunch under the weight of the water vapor in this room that somehow hasn’t drowned your lungs in fluid yet

my hands are just extensions of the stubble on your chin

and the dimpled skin on your back

my lips

graze

your shoulder,

still hunched

a drop of shaving cream

sticks to your collar;

the water runs, white

as the porcelain

of the sink

my arms wrap around your middle,

tighter, tighter,

like our daughter’s tiny fist

around my pinky finger

on that morning in July

when everything changed

the mirror turns blue to match your eyes

it’s not the blue I remember

with white flecks that danced to the tune

of a laugh

this blue is dark now

full of fragments of grey rock

off a tiny, crumbled tombstone

in the park

I can’t remember the color

water is supposed to be;

what did it used to look like?

now it’s always grey like her headstone

or white like the sink

and your shaving cream

it’s never blue

because blue reminds me of your eyes

and how they used to laugh

when I danced in our kitchen

and pulled you in by your tie

to steal a precious kiss on your stubbly chin

I miss the wind on the silver lake

and the feeling of rubber soles colliding with grey pavement

but I can’t handle shades of grey anymore

I can only handle the ones that fade to black

I miss our dream

the old quilts,

the new curtains,

the warmth of the fireplace

the excitement of an empty house waiting to be furnished

now all that’s left

is dirty curtains

and a cracked sink

where you shave off

the stubble on your chin

I used to love to kiss

now

I wrap my arms around your middle

and my tears leave grey stains on your back

but the only water you feel is the humidity in the room

choking both of us in this galaxy

that will always revolve around

a small grey tombstone

in the park