06/06/2010

black fingernail polish which doesn't end, unbending strands from my nail to the brush, a foot, two feet—a wonder and a stress; black shirt; black egg; black wyoming sky plunged into after the crack; blackout which is really white night storm, driving, then the warmth of a cartoon on the foot by foot box, only six then, brother a baby pain in the ass; black cats; brown eyes of brown-skinned blackguard; molasses; brown sex; under eyes under water under blankets purple explosions and stars and stream and then blank again and try to get back, very little purple, and then it is; a red quilt cover I made, nocturnal visits like some wanted crime scene; red never fully; red as a destination; dark blue only less vibrant; blue as the child's sweater and snap-up cowgirl shirt; blue as my mother's underwear, squares of pale nylon or silk such as girls don't wear nowadays or ever; blue as the room in the chateau, the blue of imminent, the blue of expansion; this blue; blue as her eyes, as the china handled by the woman who would die from that same hand; blue as the terrible bag; green this and that, green everything in the book, spellchecked and why so much inordinate green? delete the green, make the green toward again; green of absence; green of never; green of not anymore; green of fucked up bullshit; green of death; green of complaint; green howling when it comes up out of nowhere on a road through little green; green of elsewhere, and again; yellow funny dress photograph; fake look; fake pearls; yellow tablecloth; yellow background for the self-portrait, give it to me, I can be here and not this; the pale yellow of my room; the peach of the room I later painted; the room we painted together; the other room; the room my parents painted, the lost rooms; the complete; the taupe; the beige; the tan; the khaki pants, a bargain, my boyfriend's pants, too big, a tan clown with too-big twenty-five cent matching boots; the khaki of all that and the way it just disappeared afterward like—; the white pretty; the white I wore to my father's wedding, a suit; the white that is not at hospitals, actually; the white of the cat in the flame; the white of the page, and surrounding my hands; the white when you can't see; the white that is black; the white folded; the white fallen away; the white surrounding the iris, the confusion of white, its broken up clustering; the white of the airplane ticket slipped into a black pocket; the white of the broken ocean and the white bunny; and three other colors, pears, frames, coins, drinks; come closer so that I; this one, with this inside, to delete, to think on, to slip in, slicing.

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Aurelie Sheehan is the author of two novels, History Lesson for Girls and The Anxiety of Everyday Objects, as well as a short story collection, Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant. She lives in Tucson.