It's not my favorite color.

"Taught Me Purple"

Evelyn Tooley Hunt

My mother taught me purple

Although she never wore it.

Wash-gray was her circle,

The tenement her orbit.

My mother taught me golden

And held me up to see it,

Above the broken molding,

Beyond the filthy street.

My mother reached for beauty

And for its lack she died,

Who knew so much of duty

She could not teach me pride.

It was much easier to say "no" than I expected.

It's not that I don't want to see him--that I don't miss so much of that life.

He would arrive long after she was fast asleep and sneak out before she stirred in the morning. Their eyes would never meet.

But I can't tell her that she's worthy of love and that she is so much more than her body if I don't believe it of myself.

I did it for her. I have to teach Klara purple--by wearing it.