(no subject)
I’ve thought about fleeing of a Monday, of slinging myself off of the cold shore of Wales. Before the weekend is read its Last Rites. Before the holy boards all settle in the shy Sunday Chapels. And I’ll wear a ribbon, and shiny shoes, and bury my belongings at the foot of the garden. I’ll dig down three feet where we grew marrows, and onions, and seedlings under pop bottles. Where I sang Schubert to the Sunflowers as a sappish thing of twelve.
I’ll take a thin volume of something. A sodden bedsheet. A macaroon wrapped in a fresh-laundered handkerchief. I’ll sleep under mackinaws and forget the English Language. I’ll forget the time, and the date, and this rotten rattle where my heart once was. And my tongue won’t remember the nature of your name! And my hands won’t covet the breadth of your belly. And I’ll know of little else but greenstone, and saltwater. My boarish body and the Cambrian coast.
And all I’ll recall of Mondays, then, will be a sort of suspicion. Drizzle and Wellingtons. Thermals and sicknotes. A sense of foreboding the size of a fingernail. I’ll think of Mondays as moss, and mortar, and all that sloppy rebellion; granting myself a long weekend and playing truant like a five-foot fugitive. Ducking the blow of double French to stow away in bus shelters, reading The Wanderer and freezing my fingers. Thinking of summer, and sex, and silver mares.
And perhaps I’ll be swept out to sea as a girl of twenty four. Washed onto shore just off of Bordeaux, with soft bones and swollen limbs. With chalk rings ‘round my ankles, and wrists. And come twenty six I’ll be scrubbed and set in a parlour overlooking the Rue de la Pompe, stringing Flax and Knapweed from the shutters and stalls, spending my Mondays fishing for tadpoles in the Mare d’auteuil and sitting down to Soupe à la bonne femme from a large glazed tureen. And perhaps I’ll be wed come some August, with flowers in my hair and all four church bells pealing. With blossoms, and birds, and the good love of a boy. And our first daughter will be Monday-born. Fair of face and fixed in rhyme. And all our Mondays after will be sprightly, and fey! A slew of cinnamon smells, and storybooks, and light lunches ‘round the ottoman. The sash windows all flung up while some sweet serenade saunters off up the hallway. And Mondays will stand bold, and keen, like four silver pins in the calendar month. As yesterdays Church clothes starched and hung. As that which saw me such a spectral child. Such a slight and shadowy thing! As that which washed my knees, and kissed my cheeks, and that made a ripe woman of me.
I’ll take a thin volume of something. A sodden bedsheet. A macaroon wrapped in a fresh-laundered handkerchief. I’ll sleep under mackinaws and forget the English Language. I’ll forget the time, and the date, and this rotten rattle where my heart once was. And my tongue won’t remember the nature of your name! And my hands won’t covet the breadth of your belly. And I’ll know of little else but greenstone, and saltwater. My boarish body and the Cambrian coast.
And all I’ll recall of Mondays, then, will be a sort of suspicion. Drizzle and Wellingtons. Thermals and sicknotes. A sense of foreboding the size of a fingernail. I’ll think of Mondays as moss, and mortar, and all that sloppy rebellion; granting myself a long weekend and playing truant like a five-foot fugitive. Ducking the blow of double French to stow away in bus shelters, reading The Wanderer and freezing my fingers. Thinking of summer, and sex, and silver mares.
And perhaps I’ll be swept out to sea as a girl of twenty four. Washed onto shore just off of Bordeaux, with soft bones and swollen limbs. With chalk rings ‘round my ankles, and wrists. And come twenty six I’ll be scrubbed and set in a parlour overlooking the Rue de la Pompe, stringing Flax and Knapweed from the shutters and stalls, spending my Mondays fishing for tadpoles in the Mare d’auteuil and sitting down to Soupe à la bonne femme from a large glazed tureen. And perhaps I’ll be wed come some August, with flowers in my hair and all four church bells pealing. With blossoms, and birds, and the good love of a boy. And our first daughter will be Monday-born. Fair of face and fixed in rhyme. And all our Mondays after will be sprightly, and fey! A slew of cinnamon smells, and storybooks, and light lunches ‘round the ottoman. The sash windows all flung up while some sweet serenade saunters off up the hallway. And Mondays will stand bold, and keen, like four silver pins in the calendar month. As yesterdays Church clothes starched and hung. As that which saw me such a spectral child. Such a slight and shadowy thing! As that which washed my knees, and kissed my cheeks, and that made a ripe woman of me.