• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

  • Home
  • About
    • Masthead
    • Contact
    • Donate
  • Issues
    • Covid Stories
  • FAQs
  • Submit

This is the Color

By Hannah Berman

 

Yes, this, this is the color.

 

The color of her tiny bed sheets,

because no one expected it would be a girl.

 

The color of his model airplane

that he builds himself, with balsa wood and Elmer’s glue,

and launches off the roof directly into a puddle.

 

The color of his breath

at the end of the first date

as they sit, limbs entangled, on the porch,

when all he wants to do is kiss her.

 

The color of their souls

as they walk along the windswept tides

of the ocean, after the sky has been cut open

and has fallen in deliberate wrath,

with a thin line of foam marking the former height of the water.

 

The color of the porcelain

they are given on their wedding day,

that they didn’t register for

but her sister thought looked quaint,

which they almost use the day he gets his diploma,

but it never makes its way down from the high cupboard.

 

The color of Carolyn’s sneakers

on her first day of kindergarten

at the big public school down the street,

as they say farewell to her at the door

with poorly concealed emotions

flying out of their grasping fingertips

they watch her skip into the void, unafraid.

 

The color of her smile

as she looks out at the dunes they used to traverse together

recalling his twinkling eyes the day he asked her to dinner,

the way he sang to little Carolyn,

his infernal habit of leaving the kitchen light on to attract moths,

how his mind stayed sharp when his body went numb,

and the way he used to place his fingertips

on the small of her back just to remind her he was there.

 

 

Hannah Berman likes singing more than talking and really would like to be a Disney princess some day.

 

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue Two

Copyright © 2023 · Site by Sumy Designs, LLC