Today I was a crystal baby, ensconced in the white softness
Of frayed blankets, drunk with overuse, forming rivulets of white sand until I could
Only see black.
Mum came to me on the edges of her feet,
Dragging the weight of home-growing, home-making and home-shaping, and shook me awake
Physically, first, then spiritually, with
'It was easier when you were younger, you listened.'
'You were a quiet child, what happened now?'
Until I dragged her into testing the measure of crystal,
Asking her, for five minutes, to hold me before the ochre curtains
Were pulled away to the titters of a canary Sun.
The orange oven broke down a few years ago, and began gathering rust
... Actually, the rust was always there, in the basin of the thick au gratin,
But we put it off to taste, to having spent too long in the sun.
I like my au gratin like I like my boys- differently tasting, an odd kind of burnt:
Heat coming off from the basin as symptoms of impending doom
The drum roll before the orchestra of baking death: fizz, crackle and boom.
I remember how heated and purple the evening skies were, flamingo pink from
The right angle.
The lone time I visited a circus, I expected the drama, opera, greek tragedies,
Unfurling into purple canvas.
I watched the clowns throw things, rise before plummeting, right before plummeting,
Turn the fear of the lion into laughter
Turn the fury of the bear into laughter
Turn the subsequent death of an emotion into laughter.
I thought trapeze artists were the hands of an overcharged clock,
Whirring to the haphazard music of circus tricks:
Fizz, crackle, boom.
I always imagined this drama unfurling in the backdrop of purple heat.
Instead, the light is ochre yellow in my room.
Today I was a crystal baby, shining up the dirty edges of rooms,
Asking for five more minutes in the soft measure of light,
Long after my Mum left, long after nobody was listening
Like I used to, when I was younger.
Today I was a crystal baby, sugar crystal peppering my mouth
When nobody was watching.
Of frayed blankets, drunk with overuse, forming rivulets of white sand until I could
Only see black.
Mum came to me on the edges of her feet,
Dragging the weight of home-growing, home-making and home-shaping, and shook me awake
Physically, first, then spiritually, with
'It was easier when you were younger, you listened.'
'You were a quiet child, what happened now?'
Until I dragged her into testing the measure of crystal,
Asking her, for five minutes, to hold me before the ochre curtains
Were pulled away to the titters of a canary Sun.
The orange oven broke down a few years ago, and began gathering rust
... Actually, the rust was always there, in the basin of the thick au gratin,
But we put it off to taste, to having spent too long in the sun.
I like my au gratin like I like my boys- differently tasting, an odd kind of burnt:
Heat coming off from the basin as symptoms of impending doom
The drum roll before the orchestra of baking death: fizz, crackle and boom.
I remember how heated and purple the evening skies were, flamingo pink from
The right angle.
The lone time I visited a circus, I expected the drama, opera, greek tragedies,
Unfurling into purple canvas.
I watched the clowns throw things, rise before plummeting, right before plummeting,
Turn the fear of the lion into laughter
Turn the fury of the bear into laughter
Turn the subsequent death of an emotion into laughter.
I thought trapeze artists were the hands of an overcharged clock,
Whirring to the haphazard music of circus tricks:
Fizz, crackle, boom.
I always imagined this drama unfurling in the backdrop of purple heat.
Instead, the light is ochre yellow in my room.
Today I was a crystal baby, shining up the dirty edges of rooms,
Asking for five more minutes in the soft measure of light,
Long after my Mum left, long after nobody was listening
Like I used to, when I was younger.
Today I was a crystal baby, sugar crystal peppering my mouth
When nobody was watching.
