Vermillion

Counting the shapes traced along my spine,

I fall to sleep

Distantly, I begin to hear the soft shuffling of the railway line

The train always seems uncomfortable at these odd hours

Huffing hushed complaints that form clouds over its head

I see it often

Travelling from one corner of my egg-wash ceiling

To the other

When I am awake at these hours,

I often seem to be listening to old memos.

Though, not very closely.

It is more as if

They are floating storm clouds

Circling around my lighthouse being

And when I have run out of memos to hazily listen to,

My dear pruned heart looks to the telephone directories.

The implacable bulb up in my head

Has swallowed and gulped every last digit

So that now I don't remember them

They are as loose safety pins holding together the hem of my ‘occasions’ dress.

My mother has named it so.

I do not know the names etched alongside these numbers

Yet I do recall their voices

It is them that I hear in the old purple memos

It is them that I grip in orange memory

In whirlpools around and through my belly

Oh how lonely you must be,

Your wine stained upon your head;

While I lie awake in the company

Of myself, the train, and my bed

I watch

As the little sailor-boy approaches

The weathered rocks at my feet

He tips his hat,

Not meeting my eyes,

Then navigates his gaze towards you.

He melts into a pool of wine,

Merlot, you say,

After a taste

Same as the tears that

Now, frame your lips,

Now, fall to your neck

Now burst as a dam at the base of your chest.

My arms burn vermillion,

Cradling the wine at your chin

As the train leaves my ceiling,

It returns to its place upon my window

My heart shivers silently,

Waiting for the clouds to go

~jhinuk