it’s what we add to the black and white, a direction neither left or right, choosing neither blind or sight.

it’s the parenthesis that holds what we really mean–plainly, optional, neatly avoidable.

it’s the revision of the revisionist’s history, a pylon marking everything, then, now, eventually.

gray is a man born to a king
who knows there’s no rank between coal and his ring

gray is the silence that steers to right
that thing that was said between the sheets that night

it’s a handshake firm between
not friends
not enemies
not companies

people
hands
skin to skin
laughing mouths and shots of gin
bearing witness to what we’re in
she carries on without us then

by rank and file they walk the plank
of a ship that sailed long ago and sank
we raise our glasses and give thanks
cheers and clink and clink and clank

away
we stay
in the gray