after Pantone color of the year

It is a vivid magenta, pulsating, compelling,

a color of passion

a color of pomegranate

the seeds bleeding out

a thick viscous garnet drip.

All I see is a concrete curb,

succulents lining the border,

crushable, squishy, forbidden,

Of course, we were not supposed to step on them

to crush them was to disturb the parade route

while we waited for our dads to pass,

dress uniforms pressed and neat

salutes cutting the air.

No vivid magenta at all,

except maybe in mom’s parted lips

as dad passed.

Linda Trott Dickman has been writing poetry since her first sleep away camp experience when she was ten years old. Linda served as Bards Laureate for the Bards Initiative (2017-2019) and on its board.Linda is the poetry coordinator for the Northport Arts Coalition, an associate poetry instructor with the Vanderbilt Museum and the Northport Historical Society, She teaches a poetry workshop at Samantha’s Li’l Bit of Heaven and for Red Penguin Press. Her poetry has been published in everything from school and church bulletins to international journals. She is an editor for Paumanok, a poetry anthology for Long Island.She is the author of three books of poetry, Robes, The Air that I Breathe and the award-winning Road Trip.