His Spot on the Deck

By Helen Anderson

For as long as I could remember,

Brown was the color of comfort.

It always came to me as a smell

Of carpet, couch, and altoids.

You were always a place of warmth

Despite the chill of mourning

I set myself to your sturdiness

And the rasp of your laugh.

A relationship over the phone

Was all I had to cling to

As the brown house burns,

And age draws its thorns nearer.

There came a time of jettison

Where I found myself once again

On one side of a phone call

And alone in my nation.

The crackle was the same

As the pan frying omelettes.

It seems hard for him

To be compared to a picture

He never imagined he’d embody.

Brown was never his color,

But I hear it in his words

As the grape vine reaches

For the second generation.

I want to say, to reassure that

Brown is the color of comfort.

And I can’t think of anything better

Than being right all year.