she was drowning in red (for Meredith Monk)

She was drowning in the music of red.

It seemed to be everywhere ---

In the Songs of Ascension,

In the lipstick that Meredith Monk wore.

The music was red, and

Her strange vocal sounds primitive,

suffused With red.

She thought of the red rocks of Teignmouth

That marked the last

Part of her journey home.

She was drowning in red,

And remembered Sylvia Plath’s tulips –

They wanted to devour her.

She couldn’t imagine where she began,

And they ended.

Red poppies for Remembrance Day---

32 million paper poppies sold

for remembrance they said –

Was that true?

She was drowning in red.

He had suggested red

Velvet curtains

and they had all laughed at this idea,

As if they recalled a bordello,

or an old theatre,

or the grandeur of an opera house.

Red velvet --- something you could sink into though,

But not drown.

She was drowning in red,

And longed for the safety of blue.

Someone she knew invented agapanthic blue,

But she preferred aquamarine or even turquoise.

Like the water around Iona,

surprisingly blue, like the Mediterranean.

She is drowning in red,

and must sink there.

Forget herself

Eternally in red.