—THINGS AREN’T GOING GREAT RIGHT NOW, BUT THEY OFTEN DO  

                                        The Perils of Color

         

      It seems like the end, because we’re stuffed in the corner of a coffee shop and she’s telling me about the perils of color, which is when I notice how her eyes shift from Christmas pine to amber, and there’s a teeny eraser nub of leftover mocha foam on the tip of her upper lip that I used to nuzzle when I was so crazy in love but not the least bit hungry, and everyone around us is concentrating in the buxom silence as if it’s 9/11 replaying on their laptop screens and the jovial barista with a septum ring is swabbing the next tabletop over with a filthy rag that resembles a loaded diaper, the kind I’d be taxed with changing if we’d ever had kids, but again, this feels like the finish line because she sits across from me like some antique vase they enclose in safety glass at European museums—alarmed, untouchable and fragile, with hand painted swirls on both sides—when she finally tilts her head up for one last look at the audience and says, The thing is, I told you I wanted pink, but all you ever craved was blue.