Shades of Green

There was once a woman I loved

She kept her hair up
To display her favorite

Peridot earrings
Two single faceted drops

Exploding light
Whenever the sun was behind her

I found the mate
Gone missing years ago

In the heating vent
Suddenly I'm feeling apologetic

For such a deprivation of light

She wore a dress in shades of green
tight around the bodice and sheaths of fabric for the skirt
yards upon meters brush the corners of long corridors
of a palace built for her, the train growing longer
as she walked, a closed fan nestled between her
forefinger and middle, made of peacock feathers
the tips set into bamboo panels and held together
by a brass drill topped by circular brass notches.

There's a woman who lives in my head.

Whom I built the palace for.
I picked her up at a Chinese food restaurant
Called Ming's Diner.
The only place in a 25-mile radius

That serves chop-suey.
She was reading manga. The latest craze
Immersed in its English translation
While fingering a Hello Kitty cup

Too small for a human being.
Under the elbow of her reading hand
Was a college chemistry book.
She looked like a painting that

Wasn't right for her.
Mme X by Sargent
Of a woman in a black dress
Like a heart over her breasts.

Jeweled straps pulled back
Over Mme X's shoulders and
Her extra-small waist.
But her—she was

Like painting ochre over raw umber
Like burnishing copper
Like how some reds truly look brown.
The result of irish/english/indian

Or native american/french/african slave blood
All of which
She said couldn't be certain.
Except for the last one.

Gentry class like Mme X
Just born in the American South. She stood
And sat straight by arching the middle of her back
But unlike ma-dame

Looking away
She looks back.

At first I just thought she looked better in green.