Purple Sage

A lost love poem

Purple Sage

She adored him like violets
her namesake bloom, simple
in May while they flourished
his color blindness a dull irony
blind as he was to redness
he took people’s word
how she looked in crushed velvet
the unusual shade of her eyes
the flush skin at her throat
 
She loved Prince
for him it was Hendrix
they orbited one another in rhythm
she bought him sharpened knives
a heliotrope box of cards
they warmed one another
deep in December

By May she went back out west 
he dreaded the distance
the heat, the endless miles of sage
he plucked violets at the cemetery
and laid them out on the patio
by August he forgot them drying there
he had his knives, his box of cards, his Hendrix

He kept things hidden
a war-wounded heart
very little left of a bottle of Crown Royal 
Prince on repeat

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I stumbled onto an old video of Sting covering Purple Haze on SNL. Somehow that planted the idea in my head that I needed to write a purple poem. So I did.