you wore this shirt on the first day of red lipstick
lipstick in general
lipstick that created on your face a new dimension
fire around the mouth, metallic red smear, beckoning light and
darkness to enter at once
to
play in your mouth like foreign tongues.
paint that stained your stories pink.

I wear it now in your absence and there is
no colour on me
only within
the same slippery shade-
it keeps me alive.