Black

Black

At first, it’s only the absence—
then the presence begins to breathe.
Sometimes rage, sometimes sadness,
the darkness of a black hole.

Wind tears the night apart;
sky turns heavy, metallic,
the color of fury before it breaks
as the world fades to dark.

In a room a dress hangs
between celebration and mourning.
the color that expresses everything—
formality, the grief, or perhaps
intentional understatement.

The unnamed man who would be king
keeps it in his chest like a weapon,
the darkness of a narcissistic soul.
He calls it vision,
but it stinks of rancid smoke
and pollutes the atmosphere.

There is sweetness as well --
a strand of licorice pulled between teeth,
melting slowly, coating the tongue,
staining the teeth,
bitterness covered with sugar
delicious.

My dog’s nose—
cool, shining—
presses into my palm,
as if to remind me
with her soulful ebony eyes
that darkness can love, too.

For my prompt at What's Going On? -- "Black or White"