In Praise of the Grammatical Colon

For Stevie Beck

The most optimistic two dots
one stacked atop the other
like an old-fashioned traffic light.
Something is coming:
a possibility or a choice.
No ambivalence or haughtiness
like its cousin, the semi-colon;
no controlling attitude
like the period.
Period.
The colon sits at the end of a word
announcing, introducing:
entries on a list,
a thought set apart,
the body of a letter, a quotation,
a series of items.
It knows it can be replaced at any moment:
the opportunistic em dash,
the bulky that is or namely.
If I had a logo
it would be a colon:
perhaps in dark blue
like infinite galaxies,
endless bodies of water,
the melancholy that precedes change.