By Patricia A. McGoldrick

All I know is that Paul made me see red

Red, when I didn't want to see any colours at all.

He sent a white letter with a royal blue stamp

And then, he started talking

About white

And Blake

And red

And Burns

And roses in boxes   And roses in paper

And roses in June    And roses in sick--

Sick          ill          red         cells

White cells--too many

Paul lived only twenty-one springs--too few.

Soon, so many

Needles so sharp

Drugs so strong

Handsome blonde hairs almost gone--

Laughing on Demerol

With skin so tender and white and pale

Arms hugging Paul so dear

Red-blooded leukaemia-stricken male.

Sick, in a red brick hospital

On a cold winter's day

Surrounded by white uniforms and tight white sheets.

In summer,

The colour-coded maze of halls

Are hospital-warm

And...

A  phone is ringing

Shrieking a warning in my home--

Paul

is haemorrhaging and

everything seems 

red

again.

Through red eyes,

I see parents

At a sombre black funeral

With a white-draped

coffin

resting on green.

I left a

white rose for Paul

And a

red rose for me—

Just like my poet

Wanted it to be.

*Published previously as a winning entry in The Dorothy Shoemaker Literary Awards Contest in The Changing Image under the poet's married name Patricia McGoldrick Goldberg, 1994.

Patricia Anne McGoldrick is a Canadian poet, writer, and reviewer.