LAST NIGHT, THE SKY WAS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR

by Jonny Teklit

today i learned that sunsets are red
because out of all the colors on the light spectrum, 
red is the one that travels the farthest,
which, i admit, doesn’t make much sense to me—
how one color can travel farther than another—
and, yes, i’m aware of the tiredness that comes 
with having yet another poem with yet another
sunset, but how can you blame me, 
when last night, the sky was a burning match head,
and of course i thought of you, in your apartment
hundreds of miles away, your untidy bedroom, wondering
if the sky looked the same through your perfect window,
a jar of topaz spilled and shimmering, the world
once again offering us its embarrassment of riches. 

Jonny Teklit is a recipient of the 2019 Aliki Perroti and Seth Young Most Promising Young Poet Award. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, Catapult, and elsewhere. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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