Purple

My jeans I’d wear, twirling in the air the cousins, loved those kids; I’d see them hardly ever, flying, laughing, rising. Mother couldn’t understand the wriggling out of the purple dress; nails were temporarily permanent, bought in Poughkeepsie, when it was safe for teenagers to shop by themselves. In thirty plus years, my daughter-in-law would be approached and encroached upon; she’d chase off the ho-supplier. Not far, not far at all from my childhood neighborhood. My friend and I look at jewelry, but buy an assortment of polishes for our eyes and nails. Purple would fill the nailbed, on the unwrinkled, no need to iron hands. Could I explain, time, cannot be bottled; tears jeans, cracks nails, hammers. Could I imagine a son, a daughter-in-law; not a thought unless we played the game of crisscross. We’d write down places, numbers, names of boys, - we’d see where we’d live, how many kids, and find out who we’d marry, no one expected me to fly militar-ily find that guy who followed me to places in disguise. In purple skies at cross purposes we intersect I now know - where, how many, his name, and more. Simpler days, would I return the polish and the friend? I remember the celebration, followed by the divorce. I remember his daughter, at five - she’d survive his death. I’d not forfeit the purple polish - in the end, before my marriage, three kids, in-laws, grands; I’d not sail away from Sandy - I’d play a game; it’s been a long, long, long time since we sat in our grandparent’s house, in her Dad’s absence, and behaved as cousins, fourteen years apart.