radium in rain clouds (2011)

I think I'd like to memorize
the paint-by-number of your eyes.
What hexadecimal color codes
comprise their stormy iris skies?

At first I thought to call them blue
but that, I knew, would never do.
For blue is rather commonplace;
no, blue could not describe their hue.

And green, like blue, would not suffice -
it's much too simple, too concise.
The words I know are failing me;
I need a term much more precise.

I very nearly deemed them gray,
for often times they look that way.
But gray is much too dull for you,
and I might even say, cliche.

But, rather, it's occurred to me
these colors that I swear I see
can't be described in just one word
nor two, nor four, nor twenty-three.

They're an aurora, northern lights
they're moonlit snow on winter nights
they're radium in rain clouds, and
they're technicolor bits and bytes.

I wonder what they'd think of me,
those eyes of yours, that pupil'd sea.
I'd lose myself in them, I think,
if in them I should ever be.