Coded Red*

If her name is scratched in red,
it means she is on fire, means she NEEDS—
to be put out, stifled, calmed down, shut in,
means potential homicide, almost suicide, a failed attempt, a close call.

If her name is there—as evidence, as proof, as a map into
her state of mind—inscribed darkly, boldly, with so much authority in red,
it could mean so many scenes:
a knife in the kitchen or a gun in the drawer or
pills in the bathroom or a slumped over body in
a closed garage or too many tentacles to count unfurling
in a white-hot rush of 1,000 lashes.

And.

If she is there, in that book of authority written
so confidentially there, so permanently there
in red    incised     into the page so sharply red,
it means she is:
a warning light, a stop sign, a tender box, a short fuse, and most of all
a RISK to herself or someone else, even someone unsuspecting.


And when she is branded she-needs-help-right-now red, she must be handled

     (as you invite her in, as you say to her sit down)

carefully,
tenderly,
gingerly

   (Watch out, watch out, don't         open      that door  too fast... ),

but not so soft that there is no connection, until
the ink that is her, the ink that is her name, is changed (will be changed)
(but never, of course, by her)
back to the time (to the color) when she would have never seen
this, couldn't have imagined this, wouldn't have sculpted 
this: this dilemma, this problem, this relationship, this life, this (fill in the blank)
coming.



 * Inspired by a conversation with my husband (a mental health therapist) who told me that in his office when a patient is homicidal, suicidal, or generally "at risk," her or his name is written (posted on the computer) in red as a code to the therapists. I started thinking about the idea of what it would mean to be "coded" red.