Of Fleeting Affairs with the Color Purple

In your pictures the forests changed into
green and yellow shapes, construed and blurred,
though I do not remember them that way.
How incorrect a vision becomes in retrospect
and yet we still wait sometimes for re-existence,
like tensed deer with prayers flung
silently into the air.

I have always been drawn to trees, but
these on the other hand, were not tall
at all reaching up with their deeply
knuckled branches towards the sky and the pigeons
who circled like sequins on string.

I insist on convincing you because I’d
like to imagine that we are not so different.
Listen:

I am only asking to steal back the bits
of loosed skin that have been shed
for the corners of rooms; to return home
all the empty mason jars in our kitchen.