I buy drab clothes for travel
– courier, valet, dogsbody, temp,
a man so nearly anonymous
he must show his passport
to cross an empty street
on a windy day –

chestnut, gray, olive, blues
as muted as old denim hanging on a line.
I remain prepared always
to sleep in the antechamber
of your candlelit room
which is the brightest, silkest,
and most deeply red.

At least, as I pack your trunks and mine,
for America
you whisper again
of the brightest, silkest,
fresh-smeared
red.