Orange, mon amie mon amour

(best read on a quiet snowy night) Updated 1.25.25

I met her one Fall,

in the snow, upstate.

My pilot took me to a cow pasture,

said drive and pointed me uphill.

Clutched,

I lived. Donc,

no stick has ever defeated me,

Neither short rubber and steel nor Jo,

longer of Appalachian hickory

Just orange defeats me in all its shades,

Orange is like dating a ten:

best to be quiet because with her,

nothing rhymes well except sporange,

a spore source of dreams

while salt burns orange.

There, though, is a tell:

What’s meant for me found me, and so she did.

Under a full summer moon, turned gentleman’s red,

under a clock with no hands,

A discovery:

my fears of “once in a blue moon” were founded and unfounded,

as are many, or most, fears.

That most of my slices are tolerable.

Yet I am no prize.

Mirrors torture me with myself, and I would cover them

but I am not grieving.

My morning ablution aims to eradicate silver specks,

a thin disguise of the silver waves 

of my father’s orange double-eagle peak

red specks in my brows,

While I look like a gentle surf.

no one dares call me a gentle surf.

Instead, too much.

I deter eyes on me, most of all my own,

nor do I enjoy holding another’s gaze,

so I hide behind orange ones to hide from days

and come out in my dusk

to spend time with my orange one,

my parasol.

The Orange Scarf,1927 Tamara de Lempicka.

©Philippe du Col, 2025 🍊