‌Dreaming in colour

Wrapped asleep tight in a box like this box at fourteen I dreamt in red

like a dog dreams of rolling belly-up for fun and of my Red Riding Hood

where the Wolf lies red belly up too split like her lids

red with acne…

Too much!

She was tucked up in a YHA bunk and I was out and about

sticky in trouble with Steve B and Steve T wrapped slept together by rain in a phone box.

And awake, and cold, and dream-stopped

for no light yet but the dimmest, slowest hint toward the sea.

So we left the red box behind

and as we walked a silver road south through the orange sheen-lit Downs towns she sank bleached and pink in her bed

and dreamt not of me but of Steve B the Wolf.

So we reached Brighton the Wolf, the other and I.

Shaking legs and fags we stood and sucked the sea mist in like ale we belched and howled back

and spat it like our heroes spat.

While she lay white now a milky feast fit for a pup or a cub

or for me.

So we slept like dolls, Steve T, Steve B and me in a bus shelter.

Till the sun blue and the bus came and she and me grew red again.

April 9, 2016