Forensic Brown

I remember the color of the dirt they buried you in.

Deep, but not rich or nourishing.

It swallowed you like strips of paper eaten to stave off hunger,

and I wrote a secret on each piece to be devoured.

I’m familiar with the color of decay.

In the haze of wildfire, the sky bleeds the way rust oxidizes and I pray for rain.

I swore to you I’d take pictures the next time I went to California,

but covered in sand and ash I realize I missed you too much to bring a camera.

You were was the color of all colors,

and I see your fingerprints on the canvas you leave behind.

You were never a careful child.

I am wood petrified,

frozen in the fear of looking down at the salt of the earth

and watching it turn to pillars behind me

as if I were the burden of Sodom and Gomorrah,

told that my milk and honey and fish and bread has spoiled in the sun.

I am the color of slow rot.

I remember the way the smoke filters the light,

and the way the air chokes me feels like a betrayal.

It screams for me to put my hands up.

I kneel to the ground and raise them,

and they cut through the thick smog like a flare, praying someone will find me.

Even as my knees kiss the brown soil,

I know that my quiet, shallow exhale will pull the trigger.