Blue on Yellow, or I Forgot You Died

For a while, I forgot you died there on the yellow linoleum of my childhood / Blue and yellow are opposite on the color wheel / a complement to one another / You and I were blue and red, turned purple with silence and waiting / Once in a while, I forget you left me so long before you died / I’ll be blowdrying my hair, and I want to call you to tell you about love, or that poem I published, or the trip I’m leaving on tomorrow / and I don’t know which I remember first: that you’re dead, or that it wouldn’t matter if you weren’t.