We rehearse our colors each night,
hoping that in sunlight
they will not disappoint us
as did our other children.
Then each day is born gray.
The sun rises like a small balloon.
A cubicle.
We wait.
The bald electrics drain pink from our knuckles.
We blink several times.
Kisses everywhere flop and expire like valium moths.
We stumble home,
eyelashes caught in a button hole.
Fall onto a couch of dinge
dreaming small dreams with our eyes open--
narratives of chapped lips--
the wrong mascara next to the
toothbrush cup on the sink,
the wrong face in the mirror,
the elastic that pinches,
a broken colored bulb.
Morning -- that 20 watt bulb.
Maybe we see it again beside us.
We have tried
when the copy room is empty
to xerox ourselves
to see some sign
and felt somehow diminished
as if two is less than one.
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