17 20 65

Written 28th January 2023

17

The balcony is soaked with summer-sweet air

My young mother on the beach chair bright music

Flowing outside from the kitchen. Laid-back.

A beat like an unbound future. I buzz.

Mum says she’s got something for me so I follow inside

She pulls a blue bikini from her wardrobe she says

This is a good one. Later, the music still utopian,

She sits on her beach chair, I’m in the doorframe

She says it suits you. It really does.

And me and my blue bikini, next morning, head out for the sea.

20

I tend to be older than I wish for.

I take the laundry down from the washing machine and I hang it to dry like a promise.

Who knows where this takes me.

I figured there is something to be found in playing but I cannot seem to catch it anymore.

I’ve grown out of my bikini too.

My body is something to be swept through the world, turn right, turn left, down, faster

And wrapped in dry promises.

65

Today I took the flag down

From the house facade.

I mended my linen blouse.

Daffodils bloomed, like fists from the earth unravelling

I sent the cat outside.

I tended to the apple tree. I think

I saw a little green shoot from the soil

Just where I buried my sweat.