PEN THEFT

PEN THEFT

It evolved into something like this:
She loved purple, and so by default,
all purple pens laying about were hers.
No matter that they weren’t. The siren call.
She absconded with the lot. They were like candy.
No pen was safe from her covetous nature.
Relentless as the sea. To her way of thinking:
Possessiveness was nine-tenths of the law.
Or something like that. Or that’s how she rationalized it.
With purple pen in hand, she was always at the ready
for what may, or may not, come.
Better to ask permission after the fact, than not, she thought,
knowing that the answer was always stacked.
She was well armed and at the ready.
By default, she was his Girl Friday,
even though it was not in the job description.
In the process, he, who hoarded his pens
in every possible color, had to relinquish control
of the purple pens, it was payback time
for all the pens he had stolen from his sister, the writer.
Some pens were tinted with the garish mauveine of analine dye,
an accident involving the synthesis of quinine for malaria,
that forever changed the painter’s palette,
and all the colors addressing the modern world—
not to mention mosquitoes.
Other pens were infused with a touch of the poet’s
secret midnight ink with impossible names
such as aubergine, amethyst or tanzanite.
She never knew what those dark pens
would want to say, or would want to draw, next.
Not to mention the uncharted territories.
She held them up to her ear, and like seashells,
they whispered unintelligible secrets
that were more often than not—lost in translation
on the long and arduous journey
from ear to hand to paper, or prayer,
bypassing that relentless censor, the brain.
She gave them free rein. They whispered nonsensical terms,
like blood diamonds, or high mass, and other raiments of desire.
Ultimately it was about truth. Any truth would do.
Or perhaps it was a case of free reign, because
purple was the color of royalty, after all.
It was sort of like channeling those Roddy Doyle
Facebook dialogues. Nonsensical premises
with sensical endings drowning their sorrows over a pint.
You could almost see the premises flocking
just around the corners of the mind’s eye.
She couldn’t help herself, stealing those pens.
Because purple is the color of forgiveness.
after all.

3/27/19