The Unseen Hues

He liked his coffee like that – black, almost cold,

Borderline bitter, a cup of the absolute threshold.

“Green tea?” he asked, “Lemon and honey as well?”

He knew he needn’t wait for my approving decibel.

“Thank you.” I planted my red lips on his ebony skin

“Darling” I lingered “May I ask you a question?”

“Wasn’t that already one?” he revealed his pearly white.

“What does my marigold want to know tonight?”

He sensed the pale shades of my unspoken apologies,

Yet gave in, like orange sunsets swallowed by evening seas.

“What does color mean to you?” I asked my blind lover that night,

And I learned that it’s not just what’s revealed in the light.

Painting the heavy silence with warm kindness, he smiled.

“It’s my dream resting in the mind of our unborn child.

Intimate grief, a shade of my love left nowhere to go,

The rage of a rising sun; something I’d never know.

A multitude of differences one can fabulously flaunt.

When unified, unspoiled by meaning, a baptismal font.

Laid side by side they can birth beauty in one place.

A single meaning broken by a prism to form the human race.

When one leans on another, its meaning becomes only profound,

Together, like a rainbow, they’re beautiful when bound.

They’re secrets you hold between the shadows and my soul,

Keep them there, even without them I’m still whole.”

All over in love again, I let his words slowly sink in,

And watched the silver moon live in the lining of his skin.

“I’m afraid I’ve nothing more to add, nothing more to say.”

He apologized; I knew there was nothing left to take away.

His melanin looked magnificent against my skin’s pale hue.

“What about you, my marigold, what does color mean to you?”

“I understood it as colors.” What a world of difference it made.

“And I wondered why in the end, they all leave, bid farewell and fade.”