The Scent of D Magenta

        for  Amadea: may all your dreams taste of rainbows

My daughter and I lock heads at synaesthesias.

She says A is a girl that is pink, obviously.

I say A is a boy and is royal blue.

She claims that 6 is a girl, red, of course

while I know full well that 6 is a boy, yellow as lemons.

She insists the piano's E is a green boy

and I agree, to our mutual relief.

We go through the alphabet, musical scale,

numbers, over and again, arguing, threatening,

laughing up a (white and black) storm.

She is 9, an orange marigold with frilly leaf wings,   
      
and I, an unhappy palindrome of 55,

burgundy, burgundy, though she insists, no,

purple, purple (passion or royalty's hue,

more to my liking, if impossible).

In her lavender walls we snuggle,

snap, and at times, even weep.

We take our synaesthesias seriously,

as serious as the late night air in which

we smell the footprints of approaching sleep,

those light gray FFFF's, already tasting the coming dreams

with mingled fingers and yellow yawns the key of G.

Copyright 2008 Julianza Shavin