Jaundiced

Along the color spectrum
of madness
you were a yellow
that night in the field
you rubbed your wrists raw
with dandelions
to glow like a lightning bug
and laughed at me
for frying the greens
in bacon grease
because eating flowers
is simply domestic
and quaint.
But baking,
baking,
you said
is Chemistry,
and gin stumbled
like a starving knife
two miles to the Family Dollar
with the canned pineapple
in light syrup.

We ate pineapple upside down cake
under the covers
because your heat was out
again.
You forgot the oven,
discovering constellations
in my back freckles
as pineapple rings
of cake smoke
sputtered forth
and I dreamt of 1989–
the last time I wore yellow.
Exposed, in the middle of Sears
"You can't wear yellow,"
my mom had said,
"It washes you out,"
and even in dreams
I knew she was right.