—On Synesthesia


The sound of a is yellow.
e is blue.
i is white.
o is black. 
u is metallic like bronze.

All right, it’s not just vowels—it’s names
and verbs and days of the week.
My name is light green, leaning towards yellow.
My sister’s name is red like Friday.
Monday is yellow, Tuesday, dark blue. 
Wednesday is lavender like the old ladies in their club.
Thursday is dark green, a cool day, somewhat damp.
Saturday is generally pink, and Sunday 
sweeps by in a white arc.

My sister says some words taste like cheese 
which sounds nasty. I don’t know which words, but 
I can tell you how I almost died.

It was a rainy day in San Francisco. We were crossing a street 
in the financial district. The light turned red, and I dropped
my umbrella in the crosswalk. It was my favorite umbrella, 
gold fabric furled and a handle of imitation horn like the antler 
of an imaginary deer. Of course, I bent to pick it up as  
the wheels of a car squealed around the corner, and I was torn
from the scene—a spray of cold from the street on my face as I flew 
to the curb. I was amazed.

And if he had not saved my life that day, I would never
have been felled by love which happens to be a boring shade 
of brown like chocolate milk. I didn’t know it was coming, 
filling in the crevices, spilling from the city’s lampposts
to reflect in jagged streaks on the pavement. We were holding 
hands between a bank and a deli, the point of the pyramid
swaying above us as if with quake—first, a soaring light, 
then the saber.