A poet wrote me today: your words shine
with a tinge of purple iridescence.

I held the door for a turquoise
faerie princess, or maybe she was a queen
in the foyer of Barnes and Noble. I ‘d just
left the eye doctor’s. My new glasses
perched on my nose, my eyes darting like
twin parakeets suddenly dumped from their cage.

On a day where there is a tinge of purple iridescence
in the air, and fairies flit the streets in rain,
it is only logical, a magical spell drives me into a bookstore,
that place of reading, with new eyes.

Perhaps to see a soul hovering the periphery
just over my shoulder as I leaf through a new book’s
crisp block, scents of ink and mystery tangible
as story crunches
between molars. I lick my lips and follow
faint patchouli
clouds spattered among the gray satin,
like a code…