Red

Ranunculus on your thin stem, surrounded

by buds that hang like Art Deco lamps,

like drooping heads, but slightly ominous, nearly 

reptilian. Ranunculus with your black heart 

and slightly ruffled petals, your leaves 

long and jagged-edged, you go casually dressed

unlike the rose, say, or the iris, 

and have gotten yourself such fiery gypsy skirts. 

See how fierce a red. On anyone else 

it would be trashy, unseemly. On you, it is passion. 

All night, I saw it in my sleep, that red, 

saw it as I first did, encountering you almost at dusk 

on the garden trail to the sea. I stopped, stared. 

Ah, ranunculus, he isn’t mine, but if I could wear that red, 

I'd dance for him with castanets.

Susan Kolodny is a retired psychoanalyst and psychotherapist on the faculty of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. Read more.


“Red” was first published in her book After the Firestorm, published by Mayapple Press.

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