Pantone 2005C
I don’t own a single piece of yellow clothing.
It’s not that I loathe the colour as a whole.
Who could hate the innocent glow of butter?
At dinner parties, in the oddest spouse contest,
that a certain shade of yellow makes me vomit
puts all other character glitches in the shade.
When my psychologist asked When you remember it,
how do you feel in
your body, what colour is it? I
reply
without thinking - trapped
in dirty mustard yellow.
That night I told you, I
discovered something today -
that shade of yellow –
it’s the exact colour
of the wallpaper in
the room where it happened.
And I saw the horror on your face at the thought
of driving through the hills for twenty autumns,
pointing out the golden trees of that particular hue,
watching me avert my eyes, the ludicrous gorge
rising in my throat, neither of us realising where
my subconscious was trapped and heaving.
At the next dinner party - You would not believe what
Gary does with dental
floss - our eyes meet across the table,
we smile gently at each other, let the other couple win.
Brilliantly (not) told.
ReplyDeleteOh, that sounds as if I'm saying it's really not brilliant. It is. I was referring to the way you tell everything but what happened - which perhaps we can infer. But anyway you recreate it so well in the not telling.
DeleteHaha - thanks so much Rosemary! I knew what you meant - but thanks for your kind words about what the poem deliberately doesn't do.
DeleteThanks so much, Barbara!
ReplyDeleteRachel I relate to this. I have read 'The Yellow Wallpaper' a number of times and 'Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf - both resonate for me with links to mental illness. Thank you for this brilliant poem.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful poem Rachael. Thank you. It really transported me.
ReplyDelete