The Difference

"What's your favorite color, Mommy?" She asks...

"Purple," I say, and immediately my mouth is awash,

With the taste of grape Kool-Aid,

In childhood days,

Quenching sticky summer thirst.

.

My skin sighs with the opulent density of deep velvet,

Or flowing rivers of silk and gold,

In dream-remembered lifetimes -

The Queen of Sheba,

In all her rich and royal hues.

.

And my arms recall a fuzzy sweater,

And the smell of camping on an August night (that purple month!)

Then stalky irises and Grandma's pansies,

Monkey-faced and pretty-faced,

And grinning in the dirt.

.

My daughter giggles as I pull her in,

A million stories just behind my teeth,

Butterflies, wisteria, cheap heels and Otter Pops,

She twists and dances off into the bright, bright day....

"Purple's nice, but I like blue better."