“Pink Shutters” [by Elaine Equi]

Elaine Equi 2023 credit J. Sala

Pink Shutters

for David Trinidad

Pink Shutters — Pink Shutters!

Sixty-three pairs opened wide

in the narrow alley

as if Mao had once again proclaimed

“Let a hundred windows bloom”

— kiss by kiss.

Shocking Pink! Pagan Pink!

Milk of Magnesia and Panther Pink

seductively pulling us into the air

like a harem of wings

in which we desire and are perhaps afraid

to be lost forever.

We who have just left jobs,

families, packages below

while the eye continues to climb —

refuses, in fact, to come down from

this giddy Jacob’s Ladder of Wild Pinks,

Wild Pinks ascending!

— Elaine Equi

from the archive; originally posted September 2, 2009

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Author: The Best American Poetry