Closer to black

than white,

purple finds her 

immutable fit.

She rides the hunched and pampered

backs of ancient queens

and 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,

Purple is the fluffy, reptilian skin

of a childhood Barney doll.

Complex perfumes

probe the city’s defenses,

tracing wild amplitudes.

A tenement urchin

smells Purple in his 

fifty-cent candy.

Downtown,

she is the musty and dry odor

of that shambling old queen.