I HAVE A PASSION FOR PURPLE
and its paler cousins.
In my garden tiny flowers I named Lavender Lights.
Mid-November, amid dark ferny leaves
they spark the air like baby stars.
Purple, a seductive color,
a grown-up version of pink and powder blue.
Magenta, violet-powerful, urgent hues.
What’s purple? Lilies, lilacs, orchids.
Ah, the color of sex.
When aroused, saturated with blood,
a purplish-red penis, vulva.
So we women paint our mouths in varied shades,
lift our erogenous zone from crotch to face.
Peacocks fanning our feathers,
we stretch color beyond lip edge
for that engorged look. Matte velvet,
shiny satin, wet and ready.
Life is sex. Food and sex. Delicious plums;
eggplant, earthy purple. Some tropical fish
and birds blaze purple, as do sunsets,
and broken hearts. Bruises, strident mauve
and rose, jaundice as they age and fade,
but re-emerge, like a shrub’s second flowering,
when echoes fill the air. My doctor slips
into dead father’s robe: Less than human—he says
of my meek retreats. Pointing his rage-purpled finger, he
says—You wear layers of anger under ruffled blouses.
Anger drives you into a mole hole, leaves me
on this prairie, hunting alone. Blame, ballooned
big as Father’s rising hand when he hit, hit
hit. Then my doctor shorts me of time, so I slip
my purple-yellow self off the leather chair,
past his word-splattered walls.
Though I am a squashed plum,
outer skin ripped, inner flesh
flattened, oozing, I am the yang of purple,
the underbelly of the rain cloud, scars, like belts,
hold in my pulp. Early on I learned the trick of starfish,
will grow whole again.