Fiction from Claudia Monpere

Photo: Rob Humphrey

How to Be Purple

First there is no first. Purple has no sequence.

lilac…..mauve…..heliotrope

Purple swirls in rain puddles. Wisteria twining with crystal. Indigo nebula birthed from rippling walls. A trellis humming with grapes. Learn this language: bluebell grapes autumn royal moondrop kyoho sultana crimson seedless.

Be a violet backed starling. These social birds live together in colonies.

Glow and weep with the other women at the shelter. Work the garden’s dark, crumbly soil. Be tender with worms. Be tender with each other’s encrypted scars. Survival moons, each one.

periwinkle…..boysenberry…..lavender

That bruise and that other one and then that time when he

magenta…..fuschia…..plum

Within 1-2 days, the hemoglobin in the blood changes and the bruise turns bluish-purple.

Plant the pain deep in the dirt.
Listen to the rhizosphere, those comfort signaling molecules
…..jubilant in their work. Soon, the purple crocus.
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Claudia Monpere‘s flash fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Pidgeonholes, The Forge, Fictive Dream, Trampset, Ghost Parachute and elsewhere. Her poems and short stories have appeared in such places as The Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner and Hunger Mountain. She is a recipient of a Hedgebrook residency and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. Her flash was shortlisted for The Smokey 2022 and awarded second place in Vestal Review’s 2022 food themed flash fiction contest.