Contrast

Somehow
            That white cotton shirt
            With its order of stripes
Looks even more white

Against my dark brown skin.

What an illusion, contrasts can be –

            I think to myself, that very evening,

when the sky

            Is ablaze,

A marigold orange.

 

And then

I look at your fingers,

            Holding my wrist, circling around it

                                    Like a pearl bracelet.

            Looking so pure, so clean, so brilliantly

                                    white -

            I feel, as if, my skin is dirtying yours,

                         Making it, in a way,

impure, spotted –

                        Gently, secretly poisoning you.