a red i couldn't see

they buy and sell colours now

give them numbers

catalogue them

put them in books of swatches

make them into paints

and ask you for your name

before they sell them to you

the blackest blacks

the pinkest pinks

are free to those who can afford them

but the greens of the grasses

and the blues of the skies

are all in books now

each year the books are different

and you have to buy a new one

and if a colour is missing

someone bought it

and now it's theirs

my grandmother's people

were a red that i couldn't see

my grandmother was pink jam and pale butter

on homemade bread

some of my cousins were tawny

i thought, maybe

but the red that they were called

wasn't a red like the sunset

or the maple trees in fall

i knew tawny was a colour

because when i was young

it was a badge you could earn

you would stand up straight

in a line

in your uniform

and if you had done everything

you were supposed to do

make a thing

or tell a story

they would give you a badge

and in the middle

was a soft

felt

tawny

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