"I like the color of your lipstick,"
cinema pink she called it -
how nondescript! After all -

What color is that of cinemas and little girls?

Is this part of the new you,
whose rainy day decision includes
which shoulder to rest your umbrella
until sunlight chases the gray?
Oh forbid, God forbid
it tint your complexion
the slightest shade pink!

Each summer tans your creamy skin
you are milk on the sand,
sprawled across a towel -
your flattened tummy growls,
but you love the sound
of flesh sinking into the bones that hold it.
Poor pretty princess pushup bra
your weight loss plan has failed you!
You hunger to wear the waistlines
and anorexic thighs
that stain the earth's floor.

The ocean remembers
splashing up against chubby thighs of little girls
with sea tangled hair.
It misses your painted toenails,
it hasn't felt your feet in seasons.

Pink sunsets sink into marble moons,
each night, lanterns lit the dark waves.
I caught your eyes nightswimming.
Ribs framed your torso like a laced corset
and somewhere in between
burgundy and frosty hues
I found you in the quiet spaced kiss-
creases mark your age at the endpoints of your mouth.

Dance, little girls of pink sundresses and sandals!
cut the straps off your bikinis
as if there are breasts to hold them up!

You carry the weight of water-filled sandbuckets
on your freckled shoulders.
And as I watch you shut your umbrella
and shake off the raindrops
the sun casts a bronze glow on your face
and I wonder what shade
would color your smile most appropriately.