Yellow and Green

I saw you last night.

You wore faded green, an oversized jacket. And you came through

the door of my childhood home as if back from the shops.

I leapt on you. As if I knew, in my sleep, it might

be the last time.

And this was the first time I’ve felt happy in such a long time.  

Golden and feather-soft, your hair against my cheek.

I didn’t feel like crying, but to speak?

That might ruin it.

You looked at me, laughed and said something like “I know, love. I died.”

Such a ridiculous joke,

we chuckled together inside my faraway mind.

Like we were looking back on an old feud, or chatting about

a petty friend. We were above this. It didn’t have us nailed.

Suddenly co-conspirators in the grand mischief and trespass we were doing –

We had stepped over the real-life line to deride silly death.

Fooling everyone!

You lifted me -- this woman-girl -- like a baby.

When you barged through the threshold, the green wooden door,

you barged your clumsy way back to me; the way you used to be.

Not that body, or long absence, or those heavy heavy ashes.

This was not the greying memory of

my mother who thrashed out of my life too soon.

You wore green and the light through the window

meant a late summer evening. I smelled the hose pipe and heard the footsteps on the gravel.

Us in the midst of some glittering dust.

Just the two of us.

 Pale yellow and green;

Those were the pastel shades of my dream.