Try to explain the days of the week as colours, seen

by the sides of the internal eye, sky fingers becoming

long and thin as they brush the blurring border of

some adjacent shore / Monday coral red, Tuesday

golden and Wednesday umber, Thursday blue and

Friday green like clouded moss, the weekend,

so-called, a mass of burgundy pause / the days of the

week have always been coloured just so, try to

explain it, try to look at them directly and they wither

like sprouts in the hot sun, threaded by root to the

quiet of my lonely girlhood.
Try to explain that numbers can be turned on tongue

like mandala beads, each a different flavour of friend,

some relished while others grit the teeth and quicken

the gum / the fortune of being born on twenty-four, a

piece of pleasure for how many ways it can be

gathered and divided, contained and allocated,

touching fingers together in even rows, twos and

fours, my mother chastising me for dancing that

symmetry in the supermarket / do you see anybody

else doing that? / a folder of prizes in the upstairs

cupboard growing like a paper belly, fattened with

high distinctions and dreaded credits, I learn fast with

what to feed it.
Try to explain that the scowl of ceiling light and the

taste of red onion are shaped like bolts that twist slow

until my face drains, the rustle of paracetamol packed

in every pocket, bitter gulp as stomach pleads to

assimilate / at ten the stench of sizzled beef sparkling

in a wave that turned everything black, buckling me

blind behind the sofa, I can’t see, fumbling for hold,

the household laughing in nervous disbelief / a

fainter, succumbed to spells of head tumble,

swooping the sharp corners of washing machines,

fridges and bathtubs, suddenly earth-heavy / to wake,

on blessed occasion, upon my mother’s floral pillow,

clock blinking frigid digits beside.
Try to explain this head and all the ways I have tried

to wrangle it toward the ground / forty three degrees

and the air quivers as sliding door breathes, iridescent

on bitumen and I am late for an appointment again,

again, I squeeze my son’s hand clammy as we weave,

eyes blinking dry beneath the white / slide to rest in

the hands of a grandmother, she rolls my skull with

both palms, moving a rhythm that sighs and recedes

the tide / I am paying by the minute for this touch, her

with money and he with crimped chicken crackers, it

is all priceless for the moment in which I feel my

head free, glittering and suspended in defiant

sensitivity, salt tears coursing knuckles as I pull

existential knees to my chest and love this head for all

its queerness / a momentary levity, and as we step

back through the glass the smell of fire on the wind

makes me spin.