Nothing much happened at all. Though, when I look back at it now from the position of a windy, overcast Thursday morning at the front sun-grabbing window, I see colours of the brightest kind. For two days we shared our meals on placemats, the liquid in our glasses bubbled with the possibility of having made no plans. I took a break between each mouthful because there was time, so much that I felt unmoored by flat water on a winter jetty with four people I might call a family. If I were to write it all down, I thought driving home, might it be an autobiography of winter.
Amber like egg yolks, like pale ale, like honey straws
I poached eggs well and watched the bread so it didn’t burn. I poured the juice of oranges over ice and passed them around and felt for a moment* this body lean into the idea of motherhood. The moment ended and I felt the tartness of the orange juice sour up the back corners of my mouth. Our bodies took up different sections of the large couches, bodies convoluted like walnuts, like unusually long puzzle pieces because we are all in good shape, perhaps the best we will ever be. Reclined like this we each held a book in front of our face. I read a chapter of a fresh book and then another until I got up for a glass of water and had bunny-eared well past half way. The fluorescent hum was steady above, as if the scene was a dream the light was having, a line from it read. When I pulled it to the side the oven-sun felt warm on my face. The others went to a farm, bought the things one needs to turn ingredients into plates of ricotta gnocchi. I remained on the couch, getting up to only empty my bladder. They returned with honey straws, someone cut mine open and gave it to me like a wish. I sucked the viscous, sweet bee excrement and for the remainder of the day my veins circulated liquid gold.
Blue like the ocean, like the sky, like a cold plunge when no-one else is in
Our five bodies piled into T’s Volvo. Him in the driver seat, me in the passenger, I felt the round, glowing feeling of motherhood again. Sophie was genuinely upset when we arrived to find the tide had swallowed the rock pools. The water spun on top from underneath currents rendering it’s quality the frothed milk of a weak coffee. A strong wind flung the waves on the shore so when they broke a dull thud filled the part of the world in which we stood. Every thud was like punching a bag, a hard massage, an itch scratched. I stood there transfixed by all the invisible rocks wondering how the small body floating on fibreglass knew to avoid them. Daisy and I sat in the car, out of the wind, to better hear our thoughts. A young woman and an elderly woman sat in a car to our right eating lemon tart. I watched them light digestive cigarettes and could almost taste their smokey-lemon breath. I miss my grandma, I said out loud. The others returned dripping wet with blue smiles. I could see T’s penis through his lavender boxes and wondered if we would later reach for each other under the covers.
Pink like jam, like afternoon, like cyclamen’s come wintertime
T flipped pancakes onto plates. One at a time I watched steam give way to smiles. I watched Daisy as she waited for her turn wipe her finger across her plate to make it look brand new. I watched each of them cut the circle on their plate in half because no one can ever be sure and sometimes there needn’t be risk. The batter had clumps so as to make the cakes rise. They rose and rose every time more and more. Sophie blanketed hers in sugar. A stained tea-towel was wrapped around the coffee pot to keep up with our percolating. At four pm when the honey had run out we added five mills of Campari to our espressos and contemplated this change of flavour. Jack garnished afternoon cocktails with ruby red grapefruit and inside my head I tried name all the bitter-sweet things.
Red like a hot log, like drawn blood, like fire-warm wine
I studied the fire, it’s shape-shifting form, like an ingredient I could not name. Daisy had her shirt off because the room was warm and because it didn’t matter. Not yet hot, I left mine on. There was no Campari left in my glass. I crunched the ice between my molars and pulled the orange flesh off the rind so all that was left was a crescent. Sophie had her back legs against the fire; the hairs on them so long and defiant I wondered if they’d singe. I looked around to see what we might use to put her out if she went up in flames. I was on a small amount of mushrooms that made everything feel marvellous and trivial. I remember thinking everyone in the next few weeks should try these mushrooms because marvellous and trivial is a nice temporary relief from how things really are. We spoke about how things really are in the evening, then spoke about them again in the morning because things had changed so dramatically in the window of sleep. Sophie always had something to say that was slightly different from the rest of us and I remember listening extra carefully to her words flow out of her purple lips in hope I might be able to acquire a lens this active. We raised our voices over what a perfectly cooked marshmallow looks like. My pink one disintegrated on it’s stick of spaghetti no.9. The smoke tasted briefly sweet.
Purple like Sophie’s lips, like Sophie’s lips, like Sophie’s lips
I held myself to a water between each wine for most of the night until the mushrooms happened and the water bloated me to the point of throwing up the charcoal steak, the sprout salad, those dutch creams gold from oil. The wine went with sitting on the verandah, with sitting on the couch, with sitting at the bench watching vegetables being diced. It went with sitting at a table sharing a meal and then with sitting at a table long after The Final Bite. It also went with standing in all the places one could stand. Holding a wine or looking at someone holding a wine made every thought, spoken and heard sound slippery and delicious, particularly when the wine we were holding tasted like velvet. The wine made T bleed in the shape of a flower drawn by Sophie, poked black by Jack. I rejected the idea of a matching one because I don’t know what that would mean and I don’t think anything is capable of matching, at least not perfectly. I did not wish to see the light turn toward the day, toward a Wednesday where we would all pile in the Volvo to return to the municipal we had arrived from. And while I could count stars I knew Wednesday would be overcast and we would have no time for pancakes, only sweeping and putting things that didn’t belong to us away. I swallowed my pill, a Panadol and half a valium in one go. All good things must come to an end said everyone ever. I fell quickly into a dreamless sleep, my body so invisible I wondered if I was even there. I woke up and nothing hurt. In fact, I felt wonderful.
Yellow Days 