"Pink Shutters" [by Elaine Equi]

Pink Shutters
for David Trinidad

Pink Shutters — Pink Shutters!
Sixty-three pairs opened wide
in the narrow alley

as if Mao had once again proclaimed
"Let a hundred windows bloom"
— kiss by kiss.

Shocking Pink! Pagan Pink!
Milk of Magnesia and Panther Pink
seductively pulling us into the air

like a harem of wings
in which we desire and are perhaps afraid
to be lost forever.

We who have just left jobs,
families, packages below
while the eye continues to climb —

refuses, in fact, to come down from
this giddy Jacob's Ladder of Wild Pinks,
Wild Pinks ascending!

-- Elaine Equi

from the archive; originally posted September 2, 2009

Pink Shutters
for David Trinidad

Pink Shutters — Pink Shutters!
Sixty-three pairs opened wide
in the narrow alley

as if Mao had once again proclaimed
"Let a hundred windows bloom"
— kiss by kiss.

Shocking Pink! Pagan Pink!
Milk of Magnesia and Panther Pink
seductively pulling us into the air

like a harem of wings
in which we desire and are perhaps afraid
to be lost forever.

We who have just left jobs,
families, packages below
while the eye continues to climb —

refuses, in fact, to come down from
this giddy Jacob's Ladder of Wild Pinks,
Wild Pinks ascending!

-- Elaine Equi

from the archive; originally posted September 2, 2009

Comments

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

This is delightful. I'm tickled pink on a lattice going up. I never knew milk of magnesia was pink. Pepto Bismol, yes, big-time pink.