Dodo Eraser

the walls in the shu were painted purple, raven purple, like if you looked at them long enough, you’d forget where you are. the reality: darkness there and nothing more. it takes twelve thousand sea snails to create one gram of tyrian purple, but just truth on the tongue to turn a white raven black. oh beautiful, for purple mountain majesties, for scattered light, for non-spectral colors. for the emperors, for the aristocrats, for the phonecian nymphs. the forget-me-nots are purple too, the irony being that you know exactly where you are. but a room can be a kingdom if you will it, and if you look in just the right way, you see flowers.

Natalye Childress (she/her) is a Berlin-based editor, writer, translator, and sad punk. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in Twin Bird Review, wildness, Half Mystic, Burial Magazine, Major 7th Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her at www.natalye.com.