Purple Orchid

     (i.m Helen Kominsky)
 
Purple as tumours, I’m thinking,
looking at these last dark-frilled
flowers, fallen to the windowsill.
 
All summer you’ve been magnificent,
shouting Look at me to anyone
entering the kitchen –
 
that signature lipstick shade,
the cleavage and short skirts,
the full-on, no-bullshit arguing,
 
making men wary; suckers
all the same for the blown kisses
and head-back laughter,
 
twenty-eight for ever.

Marion Ashton

published in Eye Flash Poetry, 2018