Tones and Hues of the First Primary Colour

I am painting my mirrors

gloss-frosted pink

The future in fuchsia

The stars say I am a child of red,

a heart smeared through clay dirt

and burnt by beating sun

The moon says I am a whisper,

a single golden hair in the mane of a lion

tousled in the breeze

A rose

by any other colour

would sting as sweet

I ask the cards

and they tumble through my fingers

and the chariot hastens me toward

dignity in duality;

the faces that stay hidden under darkroom lights

and the depth of a heat that swells

between ashen earth and scarlet sky.