Paint with all the colors of the wing

Like a bird on a palette
Like the goo from grapes crushed with a mallet
I’ve mixed up some red and some blue to see what’s in between

Like the eyes of the Eurasian Teal
Like the Glad sandwich bag locking seal
I’ve combined yellow and blue to make green

If I, if I mix all these hues
I wonder if I might end up with chartreuse
If instead, I get baby-poop brown
I hope I can… I dunno, water it down?

Oh, like marmalade, sticky and jammy
Like the bowl game they play in Miami
I have mixed yellow and red to get tangerine

Wear this shirt: on your birdwatching group’s outing to try and spot Passerina ciris. There’s nothing that tickles the tally-hunters like a clever bit of birding humor!

Don’t wear this shirt: to your book club’s discussion of Jerzy Kosiński’s 1965 novel The Painted Bird. It sets the wrong tone.

This shirt tells the world: “Poppa-oom ma-mow-mow, poppa-oom mow-ma-mow.”

We call this color: Whitengale

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