What do you mean by teal?
There are no words with which to easily ask this.
For her I found little swatches of colour, I wanted to see her eyes; so I found these pieces at the paint store, something tangible I might grasp to be certain. For when she said ‘teal,’ how was I to know what she meant? Even one with a working imagination cannot here be sure; and yet, are swatches any better—what do you see in this colour? Far more than mere form; it reflects you also. All history peeps through every colour. Each of us a thread in this grand garden of forking paths. There is nothing but this eternal dance; and here we met, somehow together yet always impossibly apart. And as each walks several paths, here on one we met awhile where I had you look at coloured swatches and loved you, even as now each moves on. Where next I mourned for phantoms which once loomed ahead: you pregnant in overalls, together painting our new door, and finally wearing that pair for which I paid too much—now sitting still clean there in the cupboard.
And now to you I turn and say, if I give you little details—does that make all this seem real? It was, but that doesn't matter; as always the trick requires sleight of hand, that I might thus slip something into your pocket—who said that?1 I have stolen this image from someplace faintly forgotten, of one distracted by a dog as thieves rummage through their drawers; that is, words misdirect while the work is done elsewhere. Of course, that isn't quite true. The words are at least a negation; by excluding what is not, what remains is brought into relief. For a reader can bring only themselves to a text; hence sensitive souls must contain the sum of all things already within them. There must be sadness that this song could draw it out. But here I am blind. I know not what you feel, nor from whence this ink flows; whatever you find here is somehow foreign to me.
If you know where this is from, I would be very grateful to hear.