Poems from the Color Wheel

Orange

 

You want to know what orange is?

Orange is the full moon that’s pumpkin pie

On a faded lilac tablecloth.

It’s October before everything gets brown.

It’s when an orange in your hand is like holding the sun,

But it feels cool as the breeze.

 

Sometimes there are two full moons,

Fat and round like those Os in October

And when that happens,

That moon is blue.

Green

Just can’t make up its mind.

Among all those avocados,

Lawns, peridots, and

Go lights, you’d think it could

Decide what it wants

To be.

Red

Gives green courage.

Look at those perky

Prickly pear fruits

Rimming the flat

Green pads.

Yellow

Is forthright,

Proud, aggressive,

Tangy, shiny,

Zooming from lemon

To gold in a minute.

You can see yellow from far away.

Violet

Lurks at the bottom of the

Color wheel,

As if it has settled there after

Draining through all the other hues,

Stodgy, brooding on its imperial past,

Everything that yellow

isn’t.