Seasons (On Loss)

i.
Have you ever tasted yellow?
Smelt a tango? Seen lithe song?
Touched cherries’ flavor
or heard the sweet pop of smoky scents,
the warm approach of roses,
or the hot-house jazz of autumn?

ii.
Have you ever smelt black ice
or touched the white of snow?
Heard oatmeal’s scent creep through a cold house or
seen numbness under knitted gloves?
Have you ever tasted the air around the kids outside,
with their snowballs and sweat soaked snow pants?
Or tasted the warmth melting their fingers as they sip chocolate after the battle?

iii.
Have you ever touched March or heard all the locks
unlock, letting in the new air? Tasted a daisy
or the bitter Please forget me
at the end of her note
at the foot of the bed?
Have you ever smelt distilled spirits of leaves and sunlight?
Have you ever seen regret?
Seen a pregnant mind aborting lines and revisiting past mistakes?
Or seen the touch of your letters, crisp,
with no return address?

iv.
Have you ever seen the sizzle
of a Latina’s New York pulse or tasted the screams and shouts
of street children playing in a spraying fire hydrant?
Touched the rolling curves of heat rising from the street and
heard the stop sign’s red and white scream, melt, and drip
into the underground midnight sewer?
Have you ever smelt the Caribbean grandmother’s stare inquire
about the tan-lines around your finger?
Have you ever smelt her thinking, pitying?
Smelt her sad smile forced onto the surface
of her farm-field face,
smelt the tears you wouldn’t let rise
as you politely smiled back?

v.
Have you ever heard the wind rustling the browning leaves?
Have you ever heard the cold crack of the moon rising –
the sound of a heart breaking?
Have you ever heard the rain soak the half-frozen ground,
making it pregnant as spring?
Have you ever watched the youth die out of a flower,
burnt blood-purple above the hearth?
Have you ever smelt your own stale, dry smell,
the result of too many showers?
Have you tasted your own blood?
Have you ever tasted your own blood after chewing your lip
as you take down her favorite books –
books you can’t read anymore?