Pull out the pixels of snow under the streetlights. Cross-reference their hex codes to an image search. Find colloquial names for the shades. Peach? Fulvous? Jonquil? Champagne? Imagine the many nights before that snow has landed just to be illuminated by man-made photons, permitting crude interpretation for letters like these. Watch cautious car beams slither over the road, conjuring Cosmic Latte on the slickest strips. Think wishfully to a sunny morning, hope for blues of unimaginable character. New whims at a new dawn and a crystal crunch underfoot.
Tonight you spoke about the colour of our skin under the neon red lights of the bar and how one half of my face was swallowed by algal green of shadow. You name-dropped Colour Theory and reconstructed an exchange with a professor you’d had as a painting student, when all your woes lived within not knowing what percentage of Cobalt Blue you needed to describe flesh. I could listen to your edification until that precious Robin’s Egg morning perforated night. We walked back to our car on snow so vibrantly lit as to be itself electric. You stick-handled our way out of an alleyway rut and drove us home out of sight of the wind. Pick a shade and follow the route that matches best by the blessings of stoplights, of business signs. Transform predicated hues into the way back. Ache to a halt over wheel-churned slush. Dimgray, Gainsboro, Silver.
Now we mime sleep beneath a lamp licked by gold. Olive waits for things to happen in her blackness. You shine to me from a bed of rusty pink and an ivory that’s been through the hot cycle. Warm me up for always. Choose me in your crosshairs. Tell me about your first memory of snow. What exact colour was it by your recollection? Tomorrow, salt the walkway and note the absolute absence of hue.
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