Sedative Pink
A “staged photograph of a female footballer bloodied and muddy after play, with disquieting results” surrounded by a pink floor, wall, and bench. By Juno-Calypso. Exhibit titled Sedative-Pink (2019) https://elephant.art/iotd/juno-calypso-sedative-pink-2019/
By Lauren Wilson
Ekphrastic Poetry inspired by Juno Calypso’s Sedative Pink photography (2019)
No word to name it. She knows
this colour like she knows each drop of milk
her mother gives,
how crying is the purest alarm
for pain. Pre-painted
on bedroom walls,
bright embroidery on her dresses,
the colour pervades
Little Bo Peep lullabies into her dreams.
*
One crayon a stub: she colours pages
in the shade she knows best.
She only drinks strawberry milk,
lips froth-tinged. Crying
is battery operated.
She hushes a plastic
baby, copies her mother
cradling blue blankets.
***
And the colour leaks
onto white knickers
not outgrown but grown into.
Seated on a cracked toilet seat,
metal sliver of a lock jangles
as the teacher’s whistle severs chatter.
She follows two paces behind
the rest, picks up a stick
for the girl’s sport.
She feels it, thick and heavy
between her thighs,
blanched cotton shaded in,
runs along the pitch,
remembering how she outran
boys and girls
competing in relay races.
Her arm swings:
the ball ricochets
stick
to
shin
to
shoes.
She has always known
this colour, boiling in
their bodies, darkening.
Sticks scrape tarmac and slam shins.
These cries rise inside long forgotten
vocal chords
until an outburst—
glistening blood
magnetises grit.
These changing room walls
bear that paler shade,
tacit manifesto.
She has always known
this colour.
Lauren Winson is a daydreamer, student and poet from the UK. Her lyric poetry explores chronic illnesses, the body and queerness. She can also be found blogging about books at https://thoughtenchantedsilence.wordpress.com