Red

Before, when he thought of her in colours
he thought of her as white,
tipped with pink - a coconut ice
a daisy unfurling in the morning’s first blinks
she was dappled gold and every shade of autumn
he had ever loved.

They scrubbed his hands and wrestled him into blue
then led him through the wrong door
they laughed and called it the business end
the end where he had no business to be

He saw them slice her like a cake
a coconut cake
I saw inside you
You were all red
I saw all inside you
You were red
as he said it, she remembered
he’d never liked her in red.

A radio crackled Song Song Blue
as the first cries burst through the sterile air
the driver who took him home
said he was high as a kite
they all said he was high as a kite
and he wrote his son’s name on the sky as he flew.

But afterwards
things were never quite the same
You’re never quite the same
she was never quite the same
and neither, after all,  were they.

Emma Moller

If you have any comments on this poem, Emma Moller   would be pleased to hear from you.