Uh Oh . . . it's a poem.

MORE ABOUT THE COLOR PURPLE

Mark Lee

Closer to black

than white,

well born,

purple finds her

immutable fit.

She rides the hunched and pampered

backs of old queens.

Purple traces the orb of a grape,

telling us what it is.

She makes the old priest’s

afternoons pleasant and warm.

He tastes deeply

from the generous swill

of lunchtime communions.

Sometimes he cheats

in the measuring.

The altar boys notice.

He does not care.

Her instrument is capricious.

Operatic screams unhinge rivets

in the noonday sun.

Now she dozes

in the twilight sky,

snoring softly.

Maudlin and unfaithful,

she is the fluffy, reptilian skin

of a childhood Barney doll.

Purple’s complex perfume

traces wild amplitudes.

A tenement urchin

smells her in his

favorite candy.

Downtown,

she is the musty and dry odor

of that old, robed queen.