Red

I am not relative,
I am not theory,
I am Red and
I hate the rose.
Pink is propaganda.

I warn you before you start
I am too big for your poem
and do not need it.
What are your Axe, Wheel, Gunpowder, Words--
your feeble boasts, next to me.
All who attempt me (even Rilke) fail.
I only ask that you leave
what you do not love.
I am in love with Black.
Bring me your fear and I will kill it.

None of your plans matter.
You may covet aberrant Orange
and the gold blood of Yellow,
but not with impunity,
even Vincent and Gauguin
paid with madness, syphilis. It is not jealousy,
I was meant to possess the eye.

I married the rose for respectability,
its pink pension, the neat garden,
mistaking mistake for opportunity.
What could the rose know of passion,
the bullseye of the target’s heart!
the little girl’s red, red socks!
Blood (my deepest voice) that
holds the hands of life and death.

I am the children’s quick voices leaping
from the school’s dreaded doors.
I am not the genie in the red fire extinguisher,
the patient breath awaiting the wayward flame,
I am the flame.
The fire engine that roars
through the rushing streets
does not say ‘fire,’
it says Red! Red! Red!