Day Off

silver parcels stack like tiny sandwiches 
on my head, a masked face stares back from
the mirror. I’m thankful it’s masked, that way I can

only be critical from the nose up. ‘There!’ 
says the hairdresser, finishing with a fluster 
of hairspray and a twizzle of the chair. I wonder why

I still waste my time with this shit, but it’s because
I still hope I will look, can look, honeyed and new, like
I’ve just been through the washing machine. Hung out

to dry more like. A bit stripey. And that cow
lick ain't fooling anyone love. I’d rather have been
licked by an actual cow, the wetted dry, the warm fuzzy 

meat, some bovine blessing. I ache at the back of my eyes
say: ‘Yes! SO much better than before, thanks I really 
love it.’ I hate it. Think about smoking a cigarette

thought that was over, it never occurred to me 
while the milk poured from me but since getting 
untethered, it does cross my mind. Time to time, just: 

One. Deep. Drag. Just to check my lungs still fill.
Order a coffee in what I think is perfect Dutch, knocking
that ‘g’ right out of its throaty park, the barista answers 

in perfect English. I persist. He asks: ‘Where are you from?’
I answer: ‘Ik heb mijn wortels in Engeland’, which is to say: 
‘I have my carrots in England’. Carrots? Roots I guess. But

I prefer carrots, my carrots, still there, blazing their 
patch of orange, home fires burning. It was always
so close before, an arm and a leg away, now I think

of the black north sea and how much time we have.
I waited so long to get my act together and now the
theatre has gone dark. Think of wet autumn leaves on 

small muddy hands, old light flicking through summer drawn
blinds. On my bike, the houses in the old Jordaan slant towards
each other like trees reaching for the sun, the rain starts its 

chatter on the water. We have a date. First 
in a year. Order a glass of champagne, talk
about school days, hidden dreams and our 

daughter’s eczema cream. We watch the serving 
staff wafting the tables like clouds, watch the 
cleaning staff skirting the corridors like night,

I watch how you can always belong anywhere. Think of 
lines for a poem, sometimes on the days it hurts the most
the more lines come. Wonder if it will always have a

grip on me, know I will never be the person who
I long to be, who cartwheels off into the honeyed sunset 
shadow free. But does it matter if the breeze on my face

on my bike feels this glorious? The smell
of the summer rain won’t change or the 
yellow tulips like hamsa hands bobbing 

in ancient calm. Back home again.
Google: best bedtime for a 17 month old. 
Google: can you dye over bad highlights.

Remember: there is a reason you fought your way to be
here, fought your way to stay. Screaming into the black jaw
of death for your life, and hers. ‘Lucky you both made it’, 

they said. Lucky. Shudder it off. Google: top foods to boost fertility.
Remember: your cells will renew and who you are now is dust.
Blood then rust then dust. We have sex at 3 then too much tea 

and it’s my turn for pick up, I sweat in too many clothes in the
humid May rain, coax quietness with raisins, think: in all honesty,
I don’t know what I’m doing. Find two curries in the freezer

mix them together. Wait for the heat. Wonder if it’s time to admit
I might need god. Watch the sky. Turn my face towards the sunset
where the embers rest, mirrored off the windows like the sky is on fire.