The Shade of Grey

The black and the white were beginning to become the problems we all live with---

like they had been since way back when things were supposedly simpler

But there were not the kind of gentlemen you remembered---

moreso imagined

But it was the black and whites that had to pull you over

and make you do the show and tell

and barred you in here, in these aisles interminably

It was the black and white that made you turn it upside up

and rightside down

until you remembered that it didn't matter because you were still vanilla

up here

up here where it mattered

and the hypnosis wasn't making it any better

Then when you rode the tube---

there was something about it all---

that made you wonder if Cary Grant was that color in real life

or were you---

for that matter?

But you fancied it here on the median---

like the rest of us---

with your little umbrella

in the shade---