Pale feminist you. Bliss in a vintage dress. Under a potbellied sky. With your rouge pots. Your lipsticks that taste like cream. Your comaed flowers. They plant their halos. You dig them up. You plant them somewhere else. Somewhere where there is sun. She knows the world. She knows it in the Biblical way. English is not her first language. She has two daughters. Her son is the baby of the family. The avocado tree is flowering. It is being brought to life. Resurrected somehow. The pomegranate does not. Something is in the way. Nature’s bride. With climate change comes an elegant mess. Mum is nature’s bride. Her hair is a halo. Tungsten. I worship this angel. All her trilogies. Her choir. With her sibling rivalry. She carried me in her womb for months. She was there when I realised my dream. My dream of becoming a writer. She raised me lopsidedly. I have forgiven her for that. With a little bitter, a little sweet. I admire people who live in the wilderness. There is squalor out there. Cacti. I worship the hills in her eyes. The valley that covers her physically. She experienced loss early in her life. We never talk about it. Our family is like that. Instead, we eat tuna fish sandwiches that taste like the sand we are sitting on at the beach. We watch the waves. We watch the surfers catching the waves. There are still swimmers in the dark when we leave. The unification of the soul and the spirit world. The bride’s mysterious otherness dazzles profoundly. To go on into the wild. On that wild goose chase, called romanticism or romantic love will surely mean the life and death of me. Driftwood at the bottom of the River Ouse can speak volumes. There are lessons in wilderness to be found everywhere especially in driftwood. The cement garden is beautiful this time of year. Elijah. Noah’s ark. Jonah’s whale. Imagine animals too. The clouds say everything. The physical tastes like cinnamon. Spice and all things nice. There are stems, and a taproot. The visible is the unquiet, unseen vulnerable. The mind. Let us explore glory. Let us enter the house. The country of ice cream. Let us go fishing for Jesus. Let us dream of childhood. Morning is ancient. The chill. Fog. Bee season. So is the heat. The river of dust is a ghost story. The lake overwhelms. She goes under. Even the morning river has laws. She will not be coming back from wherever she is. Both of us cherish this shore.