orange because it does not get mixed up
with asphalt, gravel, coniferous trees. orange because
it does not get lost -

as it was so we would not get lost
that they trussed us up
like clownfish on camping trips,
in lifejackets and safety vests
and orange whistles around our necks
on trails bedecked in flagging tape

and it was so we'd be noticed
we'd grinningly wrest
handfuls of dogberries from the bush
on the corner of walsh's
to toss at overmodest girls - or during church
brusquely lick an index finger
and pass it slowly through the knife
of a lit candle - or eff off afternoons
in a gravel pit to share a fire
or a cigarette, in attempts to impress
each other, and to test the patience

of parents as boring, we thought, as those plodding orange monopeds
squaddled in droves on the side of the road, or in the middle,
slow-moving, lugubrious - who drove us, who drove
too slowly on autumn evenings, whose apologues of moose
were a poor excuse. who furthermore, for sure, drove far too quickly
past miraculous highway accidents, with their attendant
sirens, sense of urgency, instinctive excitement,
reduced too soon in a blurry back window
to the disappointing
dot
dot

dot
of orange pylons.

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