FINALLY ON THE WAY TO YES I BUMP INTO, poem by Ruth Harrison

a huge maybe
There, there I say
you can do better, but maybe
sits there, lumpy. And it grows. It is
an enormouse yellow monster. Come on,
I say, paraphrasing Guildenstern: Red and
and blue are facts. Yellow is a fantasy.
Expound. But no. Its yellow silence
is ominous. I could plead for a stripe
a smear, a tinge, a dot of
green to ease the scene, this yellow
fellow is more than I can bear.
Help, I whisper. Neither answer nor
echo. Best leave the spot before a blot
of NO begins to show.


*line from Pesha Gertler, “The Healing Time”