• Vol. 04
  • Chapter 07

In the end only colour will survive

you a blurred shape on a callous canvas.
Life is a constant checking of traffic;
looking left, looking right,
before risking a step onward.
It might be better to rest. Sit here.

A padded chair beckons; soon
you don’t even know where your haunches
end and the cushion begins.
Any imprint fleeting then gone
like a dent in dough.
Babies’ hands in plaster
last longer on the nursery wall than your
pale, sorry softness.

But pure alkaline turquoise,
the clean carved bleach of white,
cuts and cleans, cuts and cleans.
Perhaps you’ll leave a smudge of self behind,
discernible only near colour.

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