Tuesday Poem: Yellow

on the wharf 

that day

such a sunny day

I wore the yellow dress

so bright it hurt your eyes

how you liked it
couldn’t stop

            talking about it
then there was that

rose

I nearly sat on

lying on the passenger 
seat waiting for me to exclaim

            whisky rose 
whisky whisky rose

you’d have thought

I’d have known
            there were 
no more yellow dresses

after the wharf dress

or not one that I

remember – I dreamt

of a wedding dress in

yellow but

lost my nerve 

and there was the tie

I selected in London

too orange

not yellow at all 

you said

a true 

yellow is hard to find

so  

you exchanged it for

something red
and the yellow

for the walls

            was another disaster

you shook

your head and started

bringing home

daffodils in and out of

season

propping them up

critically in vases 

now that yellow

is the way to go

that’s a yellow

as if I wouldn’t know

a yellow 
            if I fell over it                

you started testing me

pulling to the side

of the road by

fields and buildings

asking if I liked that yellow

that particular yellow

I had to be on my mettle

or 

you’d start again on
what made yellow yellow

as if that was

the first rule of colour

             and somehow I’d missed it
one day passing a shop

that sold antiques you yelped

and ran gleefully in

your arms every which

way

pointing at this wall and this

and then you pointed at me

            on the pavement with the kids

and the woman

wrote something on

the back of a card and

gave it to you

beanleigh

it said

beanleigh you mouthed at me

through the glass

and all the way

home 
            you couldn’t

stop talking about it

it was as clear as day

you’d at last found a colour

you could

live with

                                               mary mccallum

Oh this is an old poem and much played with, even today I've played with the lines again - until the moment when I pressed 'publish' (after in fact, she says, updating at 11.37 AM on Tuesday).

I like the rhythm, the conversational flow (including asides), the way the thoughts scramble down the page. The things it says and doesn't say. 

Do visit the Tuesday Poem hub with Belinda Hollyer as editor this week.