The party was in full swing
and I was the only one who could see you
although I thought you should be apparent
to all our dearest guests.
The day drifted like a cold picture—
Our futures filled with someone else’s blood.
In the forest of skeletons
one perfect day, I thought.
Then I made the mistake
just as the wind sometimes does
of asking the guests what color shirt you were wearing,
so bright and awake, it seemed you were visible.
Everyone was puzzled and made guesses—
I thought they saw you singing out colors.
Only I knew. I was the only one.
It was blue. It was blue.
Grace Cavalieri’s newest publication is a chapbook, Gotta Go Now (Casa Menendez, 2012). She’s the author of 16 books and chapbooks of poetry, as well as 28 produced plays, short-form and full-length. Her recent books—Millie’s Tiki Villas, Sounds Like Something I Would Say, and Anna Nicole: Poems—are on Kindle’s free lending library. For 35 years, Grace has produced and hosted “The Poet and the Poem” on public radio, recorded at the Library of Congress and transmitted nationally via NPR and Pacifica. She is the poetry columnist for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Her play “Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory” opened in NYC in 2011. Her play “Quilting the Sun” opened in S.C. in 2011.
