Loss

You watch the yellow lace unwind
from the young girl’s hair, stare
at the stretched out spark of silk,
remember the day your daughter died:
glittered gold streamers whirling
from handlebars; she was riding
her bicycle, totter of training wheels
helping to keep balance,
but the hill—
loose gravel
and a guy driving, distracted
by the gown your wife was wearing:
cadmium yellow of a summer sunset.
Where does color go when it shifts
away from sight? And when
the pigment presents itself again
does it feel permanent,
as though it never left, etched
inside your eye?
The sun weaves
behind the hill, wind catches the lace,
spools it across the horizon.