Gash

 April 15 Word of the Day: Gash

 

White cells rush in to stop the flow though it’s

only the vegetable knife, only onion, the red blood

shines and sticks to things. Skin. The course of events

has something to do with it: having to wait

‘interminably’ for whatever: just those two

quarrelling on the escalator got you. Down. Why

can’t they find somewhere else? Versus, that is

how quarrels actually look! Then the heat,

in the workroom and ‘someone’ was not being upfront.

When they act like a prat you wonder what’s your

part: do I overreact, sound usual, absorb it all

in practised silence, say something to clear the atmosphere,

what? We know what happens through mini-disasters,

we keep on going. But damage control is only

half the battle. The red swells up in its svelte way.

Never afraid of it, but you know it means

something else, alack: the day has been loose, hectic,

unsatisfactory. Apply elastoplast on the washed area. 

 

Loose? Hectic? Unsatisfactory? Did you say that

on the spur of the moment cutting your thumb?

Actually so even-handed, and you have to be easy

to finish cooking anyway: exact litres, tablespoons

and minutes, serendipity of an extra flavour,

the art of the spicy aroma or lifting boiling

water off the heat. The outside goes quiet.

The gush heals of its own accord. The night cools,

No doubt an essential purpose of cool nights.

In its place, the sign of a ‘hot’ day: a red

stripe. In its place, steady breathing, ask me

to accept the forces not so aching blind.

The gauze bandage an alternate flesh colour for those

who eat too many oranges. A soft distraction

from a page of night-reading. Drifting mind

could escape all those bad moves, mistaken

accusations. Retract them, even.

You could be walking away like

a perfect hermit who has found sophia.

 

[September 2020, retrieved and reworked April 2026]