Green

The easiest color was always a resonator
from national american violence on tv
(with gold)
to every tree and blade of grass's analogy
to crowds and their discontents.

Solid 'tude was given a shove by
some sort of brain chemicals
gleaned on the field;
it was simpler to cry for loneliness
on the elementary school football field
and at the first poem's original line:
I wish I had a quiet class.

That's how second grade and beyond appeared:
boredom
beige rooms of desks without a trace
of chartreuse and its friends.

And all my training reporting various
positive banalities to the home keepers
keeps going to work
in memoir pages,
poems,
and the sense that nailing down a definition
for living and oneself
would be the equivalent
of seeing a single green.