#102 Kevin Brophy 'Colour'

If I were feeling beige,

the poem I would want to read

would mention blue,

perhaps the blue of a bay in sunshine

and two bright yellow enamel mugs

on a tartan rug where a man with a shadowy beard

burnt red at its tips is pouring a thick burgundy stream

of tea from a blackened billy,

and behind him on the hillside a small flaring fire

going busily at its burning life. 

Beside him a woman in a red blouse

lies on her side on the rug.

I would read the poem and imagine being something

other than beige until the poem mentions

the exquisite colour of the fallen leaves shivering

around the rug on their bed of grass and clay.