POEM: Purple

We both know it's purple
That's just the color it is
For the longest time you would call it reddish-blue
or warm-indigo at best
You'd go no further

But yesterday -
Yesterday
you called it "violet" (in quotation marks)
You tip-toed all the way to "violet"
That's as close as you'd come

Someone - and we don't know who -
Someone
took a drop of blue
took a drop of red
set them down softly
into the watery glass

And the colors swirled
wrapped 'round one another
played & danced until they both disappeared
Red infusing the blue with itself
Blue infusing the red with itself

They connected quick together
like chromosomes
like the warm embrace of two old friends
like sunset kissing nightfall
like Legos locked down tight

We both know it's purple
That's just the color it is
And while I call it that in my secret thoughts
My lips are slow to part & say it
waiting until the one day -
The one day
when the quotation marks fall off
to clink on the ground
and the sound of "violet"
swirls into purple