Marilyn Westfall

M a r i l y n  W e s t f a l l 

Synesthesia

Words have color. Different from saying black while staring at pink. The half moon rising through streaks of plum remains a cap of ice. The soft mounds of “moon” on the page are ladybug orange. A girl is coached to read. One in a circle of classmates. Cued, they open their books like petals. She runs her fingertips over illustrations. The ink is fast within its boundaries. The boy wears brown trousers, the girl a dress like blue eyes. They stand outside a white house. She touches now the large font “See,” the cloudy red of cherry candy. “David” shimmers like silver crayon. “Ann” is pinkish white, a bitten apple. Before school, it was newspapers, tumbling like kaleidoscopes. At three she printed “Mary” in strokes the same feathery brown as Owly, her cat. She runs home under yellowing maples. Her bedroom window frames them. Words come from her hands. “Tree” is a snip of lavender. “Leaf” a bite of tangerine.

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