colour theory
teach me how to say it
here. with people tracing words
that don’t sound like language. sound tying itself in knots
mid-air, bows that one tug should
resolve,
but nothing happens the way it means to. least of all
sentences. especially since arriving here
on accident,
knowing that what they call as yellow does not look
quite like yellow,
and conversation pausing your ear
like singing. misaligned, constant music. speaking
taking on textures, ribboning
the morning in pauses,
shapes.
the word yellow isn’t yellow for a very
long time. blue never get blue. and the sound of orange
lancing to recall breaking
the skin of a gooseberry
with your fingernail. how the silted farmland imbrued vision
with salt,
grandfather shucking corn in the front yard
and the ground patted flat and wide with feet. in china
a desert is called 沙漠. sand-mist,
and the word is clotted
with dust. over rows of su choy teeming the earth,
even intonations
ask for water. you understand language
in this way. something looking the way it sounds. some-
-thing sounding
the way it feels. a land we call
黄褐色 — thirst-yellow, a vegetable patch blushing
with small breaths of wishing flower, and a grandfather
taking a slight petal to rub in the soft
of your palm.
staining little gold. showing you there
what yellow feels like.