purple

Published in the 2019 edition of Loyola University Maryland’s literary magazine, Corridors

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darling, you would never believe / who I ran into on the way to / make friends with busboys and poets! / it was 

our portland purple palace / parked on the wrong side of syrup-fish street / on the opposite side of the country / 

nestled in my secondary tri-state / back again from the afterhours of  / my consciousness, gentle in her reminder 

/ I asked if she remembered the parachuted coda / in her top left chipping lavender / how brushing lips after six 

weeks of waiting / sent us breathing heavy in covert delight / how you kicked off your shoes and /

maybewecanstayhereforalittlewhile  

before two strangers kicked us out and offered us their / consolation weed / or how the palace owner scolded / 

“no visitors allowed!” / but didn’t she know that / you you me / and / I me you? / I asked if she remembers the 

night we sat in / your father’s beat up car / and how, you, when / I finally left / 

let out your adjacent indigo scream / into the barefoot idle night? / does she / 

remember the last time we ever slept / forgetting mass with your mother, and how i /

 awoken by the lack of air  

choked / on / my / impending /  seasoned / solitude? 

my, how her shutters winked / in knowing! / little does she know that today, this sunday / i watch my new 

bearded boysenberry lover read  / on the couch in bare-bulb brightness / ever 

does she know that / wherever we go, we are all haunted / by the same ghosts.