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Violet paint splatter

One Poem by Alice White

Violet 

It was easier for my three sisters,
dipping bare hands and splattering colors
across the white walls. My mother nudged me—
Go ahead, honey! Go wild! But this was
our room: we had to live in it. And art
was never easy. Not at eleven,
when paint felt like forever. Even now
I can see the deep violet fireworks
my mother flung onto the walls when I
proved too hesitant, so heavy they dripped
slowly in the dark that night while we slept.
Later she snuffed each one out with white paint
but my fingertips found them—there, still there—
like braille. A message I feel but can’t read.

 

 

 

Alice WhiteAlice White is a poet from Kansas City who now lives in rural France. Her writing has received support from the Hawthornden Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and AWP Writer to Writer. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, The Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, and swamp pink.

Original header image by CreatureSH, courtesy Pixabay.