Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Purple Carrot

These are lonely times.
No sweetness lingers on the tongue 

from this carrot’s purple flesh.
Still the violet disks I slice

into the soup are pleasing.
They sink like coins

that have no worth 
except that I imagine them 

on the fountain’s marble bottom.
I am four or five 

and my grandmother is showing me 
her white paper boats

folded small, pressed flat; 
she lifts them from her pocket;

they do not look like boats 
until she opens up the folds

and they hold space 
that moves with them 

across the silver water;
to where I am standing now

in my kitchen
purple carrot in my hand.

(c) 2023 Sally Bliumis-Dunn

Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s books include Echolocation (Plume/Madhat, 2018). She and her husband John share four children, Ben, Angie, Kaitlin and Fiona.