The Color That Did Not Wait for Its Name

Nine mornings must pass before the Temple calls a thing true; a girl off Guild Row breathes tonight, unnamed, and already true.

The Karvel that swallowed two names, eleven nights gone, asked no name of this one before deciding she was true.

I have dipped a skein past dusk and watched the dark declare itself — blue, long before any ledger leaned close enough to call it true.

Corvus keeps a desk that will not enter her till the ninth day closes. I keep a vat that never once asked his leave to call mine true.

He would call this romance. I call his patience a rigor dressed as waiting — as though waiting were ever not also true.

A harbor man unsaid a word for me tonight, called it illegible instead of unknown — nearer the color, if not yet wholly true.

What the water takes, it does not give back under any name; what it gives, it gives before a single desk agrees it’s true.

Let her mother say the name once, alone, before the Temple hears it — a word spoken in the dark is already as true as naming ever makes true.

I have sold indigo to women who never asked its name. The skin knew before the tongue did. Nine mornings — and I knew too.