American Life in Poetry: ‘Just Red’ by Anya Krugovoy Silver

There are times when a single word in a poem is so perfect a choice that it pops like a firecracker, and I’ll let you guess which word did that for me. A hint: it’s a modifier. The poem is by Anya Krugovoy Silver, who lives in Georgia, from her new book, “From Nothing,” from LSU Press.

Just Red

I stand in Walgreens while my mother sleeps.

The store is fluorescent and almost empty.

My father is ailing in a nursing home,

my friend is dying in the hospital.

What I want tonight is lipstick.

As pure a red as I can find — no coral

undertones, no rust or fawn. Just red.

Ignoring the salespeople, I untwist tubes

and scrawl each color on my wrist,

till the blue veins beneath my skin

disappear behind smeared bars. I select one.

Back in my mother’s apartment, silence.

I limn my lips back out of my wan face.

There they are again: smacky and wanting.

Poem copyright ©2016 by Anya Krugovoy Silver “From Nothing” (Louisiana State University Press,2016), and reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. American Life in Poetry is supported by the Poetry Foundation and the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited submissions.