Red For Green

New Poem.  (With a nod to Federico Garcia Lorca.)

My friend, I confess
I have grown to love reds
more than your preferred green.

I adore a sky of red mist,
a voice of red words,
a hard red answer to power;

I can understand a red blossom
on the chest 
of an unjust man;

can overstand a sacred and scarlet tide
surging upstream into a corrupt city
from the harbor.

It is a fine sad romance to be
in love with and to court
what can be found in blood,

to dance a deep song with blood,
to examine one’s own hands
for blood without ceasing,

for to be comfortable with red
one must see the ghost of red
everywhere it once was.

My friend, I want to trade
your spent bullets for my poppies,
my poppies for true bills, 

true bills for no more need
of any bills. My friend, I offer you
the red stag handle

of my knife, the wet ruby line
on the edge of my scalp —
what peace will you trade me

for these?
These reds
have led me to you

and your stance
above the bodies of those felled
by your green. Red, it’s my own red

I offer to spill as I seek
an end to this trade; this is why
I call you my friend, my friend;

I call past red and green
to you — to you I offer my hand,
my red for your green.