Sunbathing Poem by Laura Russell

Summer bloomed in the heavens
A plump orange in the blue swamp
Flame to waxy moon-faces.

Suncream scent lingers on my skin
Light tendrils pushed it to the bone
Making me browner than my snow-marrow.

(Yesterday, clouds clogged the sky
Funneling sunshine upwards rather than outwards
Away from my thirsty eyes.)

Bravely, fluffy vapour puffs
Collaged themselves on the Sun to stop him
From drenching me in juicy orange.

An eyeless face smiled just like my dripping skin
Forming wax pools in the slabbed garden
Melting my pale candle-body.

The sunlounger sat, green
Drenched in white flakes and saturated
In orange splatters.

Bathed in liquid flame all afternoon
With zebraed pages slipping music into my lenses
Summer bloomed in the heavens.


21-6-05