Jean Nordhaus

 

 

Jean Nordhaus’ volumes of poetry include Memos from the Broken World, Innocence, and The Porcelain Apes of Moses Mendelssohn. She has published work in American Poetry Review, the New Republic, Poetryand Best American Poetry 2000 and 2007. She lives in Washington, DC.

 

TELL ME COLOR 

School taught blue, taught

yellow, red; primary

mixes: purple, green.

Pink, a concession,

a watering down.

 

But you said lapis, pumpkin,

ocher, delphinium.

Light was a ladder

of changes

you taught me to climb:

 

sand, ash, mahogany,

cinnamon. Quick as

they shift, you

were quicker, took

each on a flick

 

of your lizard-quick

tongue tasting

apricot, raspberry, wine.

School taught number.

I was five.

 

Your pied skirts

draped in fadeless

confidence, you

called out names

from the rosters of light.

 

Previously published in JeanNordhaus, A Bracelet of Lies, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, Washington, DC 1987 and in The Chowder Review, Spring/Summer, 1979