brazen

on my bleary-eyed, cold-cheeked walk with mac every morning, i see a tree. she's tall, for a flowering tree. with sinews as tightly wound as a neem. she stretches solemnly to the second floor of her home, where she bursts into a mist of yellow.

this must be her season because she's never looked as radiant. and yellow is her tongue. she brandishes it like she just invented the colour. she might have too, because you haven't seen yellow, you haven't known yellow until you've seen it like this. before it was married off (happily) to red, green and black, this was yellow. and this was its purpose: to be gently buttered by the rays of a sleepy sun, and drip warmth all day on dry, gaping eyes.

she defies you to come closer and say hello. you've had a sip of gorgeous, dare you put your glass down and subject it to scrutiny? if you saw, for a serendipitous second, sunlight filtered through the wing of a dragonfly, would you stay to see how light splits? or would you trace iridescent veins? would you hold your breath and fill your cup? or suspend wonder till you've had a good look?

so i walk up to her, storing away the yellow where wordsworth kept his daffodils. and looking, looking, looking instead. at the few leaves, a feeble attempt at green, carelessly strung around her neck. at the virile expanse of brown, like dry mud, that tethers her to the ground. at the flowers she drops continuously, melting even before they hit the earth. bruised by air on their way down.

flowers, they say, have complicated sex lives. heavy with pollen, skirts spread seductively, they describe a perfect dark-centred pucker. and inside strains a tongue of clear nectar. all this sex appeal and they still have to pout. and sway. and damn near wink.

it's enough to make anyone sigh.