root · madder, the long boil

alizarin

not the brightness of vermilion nor the gravity of oxblood. alizarin is the red that has cooled. a ribbon kept inside a book. a wine that has sat in a glass too long. the inside lip of a kitchen bowl, after.

it is the red of ritual, of a small ceremony that took place in a small room. of any vigil in which something was held longer than it should have been.

cultivated, not mined. extracted from a root that grew for three years. claret is what it ages into; blush is what it tries to forget.