Not pale yellow. Not subtle or quiet,
not the Home Depot paint colors
labeled “vanilla ice cream” or
“belgian waffle,” how they’re delicious
to the eyes. She’s Ms. Frizzle’s magic bus.
She’s the Morton salt girl, sauntering along,
refusing to succumb to the natural disaster
of human tears. In her center, she has a lattice
of deep purple veins, proud to be alive. Unafraid
of her snake plant neighbors, her riot of purple and
yellow in this pale green place. How she makes it all
look easy, like gold crowns and heliotrope robes,
not day old bruises, the kind I get when the ache
runs ocean deep. Like a good parent, I worry for
nothing. Come spring she’ll unfurl, her heart
spilling open in the span of a single day.
Hope, after all, is a gift economy. Soon,
there will be a ladder out of this grief.