Potted
Shock-blonde, lick-slicked and collared
I stick upright, aloof from the cool blues,
turps-headed and drying out.
Having swollen for corn, skin, straw,
starlight, a chair, some tables,
their light-pools turning in
and crying out of vases
of summer-sunned flowers
spring songs from iris’ throats –
Then cadmium thumbed from my scalp,
my oily strands stripped bare –
soused, rinsed, up-ended, old and new,
Awaiting the next parcel from Paris,
the unquivering true hand
to dance me laughing on the sky itself
Or drag my hair across despairing fields,
brushing against the verges of the path
that leads to carmine on burnt umber.
Dominic Mathews 2008
