Red.

red, conveying love and death and hate and war-

mix with any other colour to make warmer;

too much and you have a bloody mess.

a drop and it is eye-catching, heart catching

sustained and it burns as a candle, as a naked flame.

Passion burns too

ignites you as a phoenix

who flies away from the ashes.

Embers are red

flickering

banked with a high hot heat,

it keeps itself warm as the night cools around it.

Vermilion

Scarlet

A name, a shoe, a face, a kiss

an action that marks you forever.

Red Rage was there when you swung the axe

and cleaved her head

her life seeping over your hands;

it was present, screaming, at your birth

and mine,

It will linger uneasily around you when you die.

Red is everything

or nothing

like us

a wavelength in the spectrum.

frigid icy water

salty

bright with captured sun.

seaweed curls lasciviously

around my ankles as I wade

in the shallows.

I grasp a

handful of pirate treasure

culled from the bottom of the sea.

the sand onshore

is hot

and holds buried burning stones

lazy petrified driftwood logs

expired sea kelp.

The Pirate King and I

are dancing

between the water and the waves.