How can I --
            a communist --
love purple?
Historic symbol of royalty
which viscerally,
as much as politically,
I abhor.

I just do.
I mean love purple,
so different from its parents, red and blue.

As a child
I chose blue
to show
I wasn’t
that girly girl.

I love purple’s juxtapositions.

See in your mind’s eye,
no. Really, visualize what I say in broad swaths.

           purple/green

           purple/pink – I can be girly now.

           And surprisingly but truly, purple/red.

The thing about purple, it enhances each color in its singular mood.

I have a black sleeveless dress
with a deep purple jacket,
my go-to for weddings, job interviews, and the inevitable funerals.
I always fake grown up in that dress.

I read a how-to about how to
bring nature into your home.
It said, surround yourself with every green you own.
I found that indoor green bores me.

I used to dislike yellow
but now I seek paintings
of yellow fields
and happy yellow cows.

But I’ve never been fickle with purple.

Once I fall I fall
forever.

Bio:

Susan Anmuth lives in Newark, New Jersey with her son Ethan, Yorkie Xena the Warrior Princess, and cat Jelly. Jelly is particularly critical of Anmuth’s poetry and often modifies a stanza by walking across the keyboard. Anmuth works as a cashier at Walmart, a great microcosm of life in these United States.