‘Crystal Runners Down Your Cheek’

I don’t think we get power

from color.

I think it’s a hindrance;

roses bloom because it’s spring,

not because they’re red.

I slit your skin,

and contact with air flowers

the white meat,

and you curtsy

to the blood.

Bow before the cross,

Rosicrucian—

nails like stems,

grounded roots,

and a flute plays

a melancholy,

if nothing else.

I wish you would,

I really wish you’d flood

whatever I have left,

so that we could start

a starry and blurry

nursery of thought.

Worship every workplace—

every hue

a ricochet,

flown through a funnel

to some rear-seated lobe,

and it’s a trope.

We are all brains,

I hope.

It’s my closest plea,

programmed as we are

by media and algorithm,

by those that think they’re better—

and they aren’t.