in praise of the color purple
by Jassmine Parks

​i bring the plum   of my mother’s  flushed flesh
to my lips.  the vibrant neon of her face, a blushing 
bruise, brushes against my mouth like the bottle of soil 
skinned liquor we polish under an indigo heaven. we offer 
the lavender of our lilting laughter as sacrament. caliginous 
complexity we are, undoing the calamity of what came before us. 
a shadow of our sorrow once caged this joy. my mother's incarceration 
spanned across my first cry & my daughter’s.  this is god     returning   my mother to me. 
a pilgrimage back to the ocean of my mother's eyes.        a fragile           bouquet of crocus 
gathered in my delicate hands, i hold onto my mother.   my love       deep as the aster's petals 
for this woman   who  birthed   what she could not raise.   i plant kisses upon the silt of her cheek
                                                    & praise the roots that have brought me forth.

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Jassmine Parks (she/her) is a Detroit-born poet and multi-disciplinary artist. Through the transformative power of storytelling she explores multi-generational narratives of Black womanhood and motherhood and inquires what it is to heal a lineage impacted and interrupted by incarceration and foster care. She serves as an adjunct professor of Creative Writing with Lawrence Tech University and as a Program Coordinator at InsideOut Literary Arts. She has been supported by fellowships from Haymarket Books, The Watering Hole, Torch Literary Arts, Kresge Arts In Detroit, Pen America, Vermont Studio Center, and is a Rising Leader with the Michigan Arts & Cultural Council. Her work has been published by the Detroit MetroTimes, Obsidian Literature, Clearline Magazine and Room Object. Jassmine is currently working on her debut poetry collection.