Pink

Homeric sunrise sometimes makes us think

Venus didn’t wash her hands in the sink.

Spring blossoms like sunrise make us think,

Promising plum, peach, nectarine, in sync.

While this bloom that by its own name’s distinct

At end of the day still raises a stink.

These bubbles that swarm when long glasses clink

Are the very air, the grapes’ missing link;

Taken to excess they lead to the brink –

That fellow’s cheek’s much the worse for drink.

Indeed, skin is susceptible, can shrink

Wrinkled with cold; while with heat, smear zinc.

An apple a day straightens out the kinks –

What am I? asks this faded rubric ink.

Pink (August)

A pink is a Dutch narrow-sterned sailing vessel. Is this how the word glided into English, one August? Dictionaries prevaricate, muttering definitively ‘Origin uncertain’. Dutch say pink-eye for half-shut eye. Pinks, those flowers of genus Dianthus, are described as narrow-leaved. Did pink replace rose in esteem? Somehow it often means small, hence the little finger is pinkie. Obversely, for reasons dictionaries are reluctant to explain, pink early came to mean the very finest example of something, as we say when in very good health we are in the pink. Hence Shakepeare: “I am the very pink of courtesy.” That’s Mercutio?

Pink (January)

My globe was mainly pink. My atlas, a rash of prudent conquests. When the sun set over Lygon Limbo Melbourne it had already set on Forever Foreign Field Empire. Glam rockers came out in hot pink, unblushing. January 26, a non-day. Sleep through sunrise, line of rose prose. Maybe a spot of gardening, but don’t get burnt. Coral grevilleas in a vase. If it rains, retreat to browny-pink China tea. Read about Invasion Day, everyone in a pink fit. Or US elections, a pinko fit. Later siesta, behind lids a whiter shade of red-eye, a purple doze. No pink elephants.