That Particular Yellow

The children taped their paper suns to glass —

crooked, some with seven rays, some four —

and I was fine until I had to pass

the last one, larger, bright, taped to the door.

Not warm, that yellow. Something more like proof

of a specific afternoon in June,

a dress the color of an accusation, aloof

enough to seem like light. Too bright. Too soon

to be remembering. But the body has no sense

of statute, limitation, proper time.

It sees a color and collapses tense:

you are wearing yellow. It's the prime

of summer. We are sitting on a step.

The dress against your thigh, the cotton pulled

across your knee. I didn't know what I'd accept

as final. Now a child's drawing, schooled

in nothing but the shape of something bright,

stops me on a sidewalk, three o'clock.

I'm standing in that yellow like a light

I walked into and can't walk back from. Stuck.