Portrait of Pink, or Blush

By Adrienne Christian
when today at a bistro
an elderly couple in jeans, leather
bomber jackets, and heeled boots
stepped down from their stools
to stand and go home—

him behind her,
his bomber jacket zipper
a spine at her back,
him wrapping on her scarf

the heart-shaped cookie she nibbled
the shape of her mouth,
that cookie, puffy,
with still-soft icing white and rose—

I learned
the anthropology of blush

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2020 by Adrienne Christian, “Portrait of Pink, or Blush” from All the Songs We Sing, Edited by Lenard D. Moore (Blair/Carolina Wren Press, 2020.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher.