It was the color of our shingles,
my father’s tool box, and the bench
I stayed on in Little League.
For one of life’s kinder contradictions
it’s the tint of my blackboards, for one
of its cruelties, it’s the first hue to leave
our poplars in September. I favor it in eyes
and beer bottles, it’s the only peace I find
in army camouflage. My wife wore it
on our first date, I wore it when I proposed.
Once it was the name of the street where we lived.
I’ve never told anyone I think it’s beautiful
in front of gravestones. I love its spray
from my lawn mower on summer mornings
and the needles of our Christmas tree crushed
through a doorway. It’s the color of the mug
I pour tea in after bad classes and the tie
I knot the next morning for a fresh start.
Even Death could be okay if I can take green
with me and, if God’s a good guy, He’ll let me
wing around forever with an eternity of green
to land in whenever I felt like living.

I was nervous
but by 1972 I couldn’t wait any longer.
When she asked, “Are you old enough”
I just said, “Please, show me what to do.”
She closed the curtains
then motioned where she wanted
my hand. I was trembling, I had never
been this close to actually doing it
but after all those years in high school
history classes daydreaming, yearning,
aching for it, here was my chance
and I knew what I wanted and went for it.
I heard myself whisper, “Yes, yes” till
finally I closed my eyes and
made it happen. When I came
out she said, “That didn’t take long”
and the next man grinned a locker room
smile and snorted, “First time, huh, Kid?”
I turned colored condom red as some
of the other men chuckled and punched me
as I walked past. I was one of them now.
All the way home I relived it
all the possibilities, all the choices
a red blooded American man could want
till finally I felt that first in a lifetime release
of the lever, I was shaking. My first time
voting for president, my own, gigantic
one vote for Senator George McGovern.
I lit a cigarette, exhaled, and hoped
it was good for him, too.