Rainbow

She was not appropriated,
but had left when, tired of the fights
over who deserved love, and who
deserved rights,
her surest hope was to just
take flight.

But I recall that one day
when her nose piercing meant
she could not stay
under your roof,
and those times you said
she should pray
those magnificent colors of hers
away.

So she went to Pride
with us
and was baptized by
mustachioed nuns
and cried with us
when we remembered
sad times and walked
among
imposing healing angels
and tried--

to find words to explain
what to her was second nature--
where hope was needed,
why! There her banner flew! And her
arc leaned towards justice
for all of us--

but her last thought
on leaving was of you--
did you not need hope and promise, too?
Because what she knew of love
and empathy
she learned
(better than you knew)
from things she'd read

where rainbow windows
and glorious choirs
were where beauty touched
hearts--like yours,
and ours.

But there comes a time
when for safety's sake,
and sanity, she made a break,
and wrote to you
of her wife, years on,
and her children, too--

all to be disregarded by you.

Your rainbow stolen?
Your hope bereft?

No, no. Not so.

She left.