I never would have bought a new black car, but this is a used one, so I couldn't be too choosy, though I must admit I pictured a sleek black cat and wondered if a black car creating your path has the same effect as a black cat crossing it. My thoughts also turned to Emily's carriage, which I've always seen as a black vehicle, so I looked it up in Immortal Poems and was relieved to find no color specified for either the carriage or the horses with their heads turned toward eternity. Black is not the right color for some things, houses for example. I'd never paint my house black, inside or out, though I know some people do paint rooms black. My house had a black bathroom when I moved in, but I hated it and repainted it yellow. So now I'm thinking of black dresses which I've never avoided wearing. Although they're standard for funerals, they can also be glamorous, depending on the cut and the occasion. Nor have I shunned onyx jewelry. That would be foolish. Similarly, I've convinced myself that a good buy on a black car should not be passed up. A black car is like a panther, which is really a black leopard, graceful, faster than an antelope, and fine as the night sky in Malaysia or Sumatra.

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Lucille Lang Day's poetry collections are Fire In The Garden (Mother's Hen) and Self-Portrait With Hand Microscope (Berkeley Poets' Workshop and Press), which received the Joseph Henry Jackson Award in Literature from the San Francisco Foundation.

She received her M.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State University. She also hold an M.A. in zoology and a Ph.D. in science and mathematics education, both from the University of California at Berkeley. Currently, she is a lecturer in the School of Education at Saint Mary's College, Moraga, California, and director of the Hall of Health, a museum in Berkeley.