Grey

Gray is sometimes a sign for what's knocking
at the door, what's coming on:

some hairs at the temple:
middle age.
some low clouds in a slate sky:
snow.

It's the color for all that's forgettable too,
like the first two stanzas of this poem.

Or all the days that seem to be the same
day over again, looking back, sardined
together in our memory and our stories:
"...the two years after he left,
when I was drinking bad..."

Our brains, all those folds and coils are
grey matter, not yellow matter,
for a reason, I'm sure.

Gray is what happens to white when
it gets just a little bit dirty.
Or it's black, trying to clean itself up.

It's the light, fading up slow,
or dying a minute at a time.

Grey is the question color,
the hue of the blood for every
mystery that ever was.

It's also Indecision and Weakness,
Mystery's old imposters,
poised in trench coats
by a lampost in a thin fog,
trying to fool you.

Grey is lukewarm at best,
but usually cold.

It's ashes settling on what burned,
it's the dull nickle in your pocket,
or all the stony eggs in the river's bed,
or the cat, greeting me in her silent house.
It's waves and wet sand under a full June moon,
it's early morning prayers that rise and curl like
smoke over this table where the cue ball smacks
the far rail, kisses the 9-ball sweetly now,
sends it loping towards a side pocket,
some way out of here.