vivid colors Archives · Blue Fern Press

Stellar Import

Her kid wants a purple one, but it doesn’t come in purple. Em makes one, but homemade won’t do. The cape has to come from Krypton or Macy’s.

Sunset blooms like a bruise in the wintry gray sky. Gentle night will bring snow flurries falling like stars. Kia waits on the porch to see.

The child’s hat has never been crushed. Its taffeta bow shines crisply white. She reaches up an unmet hand as she leaves her only ever home.

Ann drew her God with crayons as a girl. Now an old woman, when she stills her mind to pray, she sees that same orange and red ball of fire.

She wanted the languid serenity of a Gauguin, but Tia knew she was a complex Picasso: when young, a sketch; by 60, a canvas bold with color.

Bette woke just as sunset blackened the desert sky. Then she dipped her hands in bright acrylics to fingerpaint red-gold truth by moonlight.

He’s a stroke of mixed-hue blues. She’s a brush of bright pinks. Where they join, one with the other, they’re a streak of mercurial violet.

A mature gingko grew golden outside her classroom. The crone told us its resurrection tale. Today a young gingko is greening, and I see her.

At seven, Anna planted sunflower seeds to see them grow madly tall. At seventy, she starts marigolds in a windowbox to see golden God again.

A quiver of green brightens the blue of wee Cleo’s eyes. She presses her nose against phantom glass. Today she will breach her fragile wall.