On my thirtieth birthday I wore red:
red reminiscent of skinned knees
and four-eyed eyelids puckered by November allergies.
A red sweatshirt I wore in the third grade,
A yellow star in the center and rhinestoned clouds weeping rhinestone tears.
Thirty years and a sweatshirt still lingers. And the smell of dirt beside a Southern jungle gym, red sweatshirt ripped at the shoulder by some ill-timed leap.
Red hair is less red against Red Diva lipliner.
The red I never wear crept into a plastic bag, clutched by my mother as she searched for her own mother's perfect shade.
Only grownups wear red lipstick.
Only daughters search for perfect reds for perfect mothers as they valiantly embrace age from hospital beds.
Not too orangey.
Not the pink-tinted one.
The Revlon with a touch of blood in it, of earth, of grownups and children and warm, Sunday mornings spent in churches without fans.
Reds with a touch of Texas in them, Arkansas, or Minnesota, or Tennessee, a splash of a few months toasting sisters in Times Square or South Korea or all-the-sisters-sound-the-same-on-the-phone
Reds bought and lost and kept in a million handbags in a million places beside a million men, many of whom never matter at all.
Reds of childhood sweatshirts hanging from monkey bars too far apart, and of Mamaw's lips, soft and loveworn, pretty for the World,
Sticks to the wine glass
And the cup of sweet tea
Both sipped in loved company,
Both moments made perfect by their color.
