Love is Red, a Caitria Camino Poem

Time looked blankly at me. Wind puffed its white dress— billowing organza half veil, half shroud.

I dipped both hands in inky dark, vermilion-dripped fists with which I marked time. Grasping, I dyed with meaning. Handprints—red—proof: See this? Something in this world was mine.

To love is to bruise time with beauty. To say: I was here. You were—once—mine. To love is to possess, but not forever.

And still, I dip my hands in red. Still, I touch the hour. Still, I stain time’s hem even as it slips from my stained hands— forward, in the wind.

• C. O’Neill