Originally posted on 10/28/12.

How to explain
a new color?
How to define it
beyond calling it
a crisp, refractive purple
only visible
behind my eyes?

I sit in my car
in my driveway
thinking of the two women
panhandling in the rain
at the end of our street
at the start
of a hurricane.

How to explain this color
I know I have never seen before?

When I asked them
if they had a place to go,
one smiled and the other said,
“Thank you, bless you sir.”

I’m sitting in the driveway
looking at a color
with closed eyes,

with my head on the steering wheel.

A color I’ve never seen,
a clear and crisp refractive purple
in the crazed, urgent, irregular form
of a paper flower
or a crumbling gem.

This is the color
of a blessing or a mercy,

the color of
driving back down the hill
to take them to a shelter,
the color of shame
when they refuse
to get in my car,
the color of understanding
why
they refuse,
the color
of praying
for them,
the color
of feeling
that I have not given
enough,
ever, to them,
maybe to anyone.

Originally posted 10/28/09.

Last night’s drive home
was grand moment
after grand moment

of four of us
laughing and chatting
as well as we could
over Parliament blaring,
cigarette after cigarette flaring,
New York City
in the rear view,
home still
some hours ahead.

The towns between
New Haven and New London
are strung along 95
like green pearls on a black string.
I have forgotten their names,
for there was no room in the car
to hold them.

Forgive me, towns
between New Haven
and New London.
You deserve more
than a mention here.
You ought to be
destinations
and someday I hope
I’ll make that right

but last night, you
were just distance
to be covered,
just white letters
on green signs
breaking my trance,

neither
the good time
we were leaving behind
nor the home
we were longing to see.