Love Poem Beginning with a Yellow Cab

By José Olivarez

for Erika

i ask you what's the first thing you think about
when you see the color yellow & like a real
new yorker, you say yellow cabs. not sunlight
or a yellow ribbon tied around a vase of fresh begonias.
yellow cabs honking down Broadway, i still remember
the night we first shared a cab. you whispered
honey, whispered lace, whispered chrysanthemum.
all that practice & it turns out, i had never ridden
in a cab the right way. around us the streetlights blurred
into yellow ribbons, & when you put your hand
on my thigh it was like i knew for the first time
why god gave us thighs. why god gave us hands.
maybe god invented yellow for the cabs,
so the first time we touched like this
it could be accented in gold.