poem: in all the highlands

for Tina

It madders
the fugitive, nonstaining, mid-valued
dark
yearning in the rose lake
laque de garance
lacca di robbia
NR9
notoriously fugitive
rubia tinctorium
chemical cousins
for brighter violet
the queen asks pardon
for dulling
the lake
a perishable fiefdom
the maddening hue
biased more towards
purple as queen
gives her due
Lust, rosso corsa, Upsdell red
in all the highlands
Jane's coquelicot -
the most fashionable color -
in Bath
matrons purloining youth
tree friends
blue moons
hex triplets unsourced
ongoing vicissitudes
abbreviated consequence
heaven sent
basking in lizard presumption
on the coraline fence.
Evangeline plenty
fires the heart
engenders the outposts
claims - proudly -
the Marian dew.