BY HALLIE DONG (staff writer)
do you mean bronze?
ivory,
beige,
terra-cotta
or
ochre?
Pass the skin-colored crayon, please.
would you like
russet-brown,
khaki,
tawny-yellow,
deep sepia
or olive?
i’d like to give you all of them,
if that’s what you mean.
Pass the skin-colored crayon, please.
peach?
what about the hue of
autumn leaves
dappled in rays of sun?
how about the dark-brown
umber of trees so wise
their rings outnumber our souls?
Pass me the skin-colored crayon, please.
no,
don’t call me
yellow.
i am fields of wheat
swaying in the summer’s heat;
the sweat of my ancestors
toiling in the fields
i am pastel;
brighter than the fiery arrival of dawn,
lighter than a fawn’s touch
treading on sodden leaves
in a forest clearing
i am the gold-rimmed ring
of an eclipse;
tendrils of mist reaching
for solar runes,
moon rising.
Pass the skin-colored crayon, please.
say mahogany;
say sun-kissed freckles
scattered like constellations
across deep velvet skies;
say the scorching color
of red desert dunes,
wind whipping through my hair;
tell me to pass the color of
the glow of morning.
do not tell me to pass the skin-colored crayon.
for there are many colors,
and not one.
there are many people,
and not one.
there are too many skin-colored crayons to count;
too many to encompass within one word.
and i?
i
am simply
asking:
which one?
