oh let's donate the reckless blue kimono to the hospice, let someone on their last legs stand, sit or lie in it. Whatever gender, let's not be binary at this late date. Let's wrap it loosely round them, silk like water lapping at their nipples like lips. Let them imagine babies, lovers, schools of fish. Let them loll in the blue lagoon of this kimono whose embroidered cranes might take their tired thoughts skywards, let's give them the choice to float or fly. Or both at once, like blueness, sacred and profane. Let's donate the pink one too, pale blush-silk to pull round a frame gone lean and lush in its own way, late on, young, old, let's not fuss overmuch about the numbers now. Settle the pink kimono on a bed and watch the glances it gets, still welcome. Then there's the short orange one, let's toss that into the mix and see who goes for its blaze of glory to the waist, no mimsy bed jacket, a silk racket crackling away, a fire going, going, let's leave it at that.
Poem reprinted, with permission, from The Green Door: Poems by Paper Voices (Psychology New Press, London 2016). Paper Voices is a poetry group at MIND in Birkenhead.
Aileen La Tourette is a novelist and poet who in 2016 won the Live Canon International Poetry Competition. She was a lecturer at John Moores University, Liverpool, until she retired in 2011. She is a former Chair of SOF Steering Committee.