Napo 22

Today's writing was a little difficult. The prompt was to write about a word in the dictionary. Dictionary.com's word of the day is rhubarb, so I titled my poem that and meditated on the color red, how it means both beginning and end, love and anger, the two extremes. Maybe the "two extremes" aren't so different . . .

Rhubarb

I think about the paintbrushes,

How they fill the roadside lawns

with flecks of red,

The color of flush flesh,

of blushed cheeks,

Puckered lips, the tongue

How red attracts the bees,

The hummingbirds, the hungry,

How it whets the appetite—

Cherries, rhubarb, radish

The fine line between love

And anger

Carries the scent

Of passionfruit

Whenever I wear a red dress,

The color of those wildflowers,

And slather my lips

in that same hue,

I too become spring,

No matter the season,

And behind me, the heat

Of summer seems to follow

My face turns that color

as the blood rushes to skin

Sunrise, sunset,

We drip with it

The moment we come

Into the world

And when we leave it, too,

Gazing up into the fire

Of the sky, a final flash

Of rhubarb, the color

we all are deep inside,

paintbrushes, bursting to life,

for a dalliance that’s all too brief.