Portrait of Pink, or Blush
when today at a bistro
an elderly couple in jeans, leather
bomber jackets, and heeled boots
stepped down from their stools
to stand and go home—
him behind her,
his bomber jacket zipper
a spine at her back,
him wrapping on her scarf
the heart-shaped cookie she nibbled
the shape of her mouth,
that cookie, puffy,
with still-soft icing white and rose—
I learned
the anthropology of blush
an elderly couple in jeans, leather
bomber jackets, and heeled boots
stepped down from their stools
to stand and go home—
him behind her,
his bomber jacket zipper
a spine at her back,
him wrapping on her scarf
the heart-shaped cookie she nibbled
the shape of her mouth,
that cookie, puffy,
with still-soft icing white and rose—
I learned
the anthropology of blush
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2020 by Adrienne Christian, “Portrait of Pink, or Blush” from All the Songs We Sing, Edited by Lenard D. Moore (Blair/Carolina Wren Press, 2020.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.