My father’s sadness came in so many different colors
that we were never sure whether he was cerulean, or just blue.
I’ve been thinking about how your thighs opened in the bathtub
the first time we were together, the sound you made
when my tongue traveled your skin like a bird flying its way home.
The grip of your fingers on my shoulders when you came,
your eyes squinched up tight like a newborn’s.
Each year the lightning gets more beautiful than the last,
the silver streaks through the sky over the rattling branches
as the old men down at the cemetery pour more dirt in the graves,
the skeletons burying their heads in the soil
like a teenager who doesn’t want to be woken up.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my father’s sadness was somehow
connected to the crush of your fist against my chin when you’re drunk,
my body stumbling backward from yours, the two of us together
weaving in and out, in and out like a tapestry.
Or how I went to a dinner party once and my eye was black,
swollen and surrounded with color like the ring of fire
around the moon during an eclipse,
and my friends kept staring at it with wine glasses in hand,
the record scratching on the turntable, the candles
burning down to the wick,
and none of them said anything
because they figured I could cover it up with makeup
better when I got home.
Sometimes that cemetery seems so inviting
that I’d like to call the dead up
and see if they could spare some room.
Your fingers in my mouth, your teeth on my neck,
the string of bruises I wear on my wrist like a bracelet
because we couldn’t afford the diamonds.
I overheard my mother talking with my father once
when I was three. How do I get out? she asked.
I don’t know, he replied. How does anyone?
But there are over seventy shades of blue in the world,
and not a single one of them matches the sound of your voice
when you murmur I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.