Festival

Sitting in sunshine my ribbons (purple and green)
match the patterns in the grass. Here is my new love,
an offering to old friends. Look, he has strong feet
bare in the grass, look, his long hair is curling down
his back, notice how he holds quiet here, among
all of you strangers, notice he holds warmth, listening.
Wendy says he’s lovely, and look at his arms, strong,
and is he good? I smile, twist a purple ribbon, good,
I say, shiny good.

We found them by the three legs and Debra remained
in her tent and I was grateful, although always
I was listening for her breath. The new ones are lovely,
and they’re not what we had. While Debra breathed
we followed patterns in the grass, purple, green
in diamonds; legs flapping overhead in their field of red.

In the morning I walked up through meandering clouds
to find the toppest top. I meant to see everything,
but all was clouded. Instead, I painted for myself
on myself purple flowers, found my lover in the waking day
and he gently threaded ribbons (purple and green)
through my hair. I followed him down, down into crowds,
forward so the light slowed to sound filling us up,
forcing our hearts to beat in time, our human hands held
against the press of dancing not falling, dancing,
not being swept away, dancing and building and
jumping each other all together, all jumping in the sound
beating our hearts and everything loud,
everything aloud, dancing, everything allowed.

When it stilled I stilled alone, clouded, and gently
I drew the ribbons from my hair.
I dropped them there.

Blue

It’s lightest above the clouds, look
light there like a robin’s egg or
at least the colour I’m told is
robin’s egg blue, like
boy-baby blankets, like
deep breaths of sunshine.

Up and down the deep sea reflects
deep sky reflects blue like
velvet night if you wear
that velvet dress like she wore
blue velvet, like even
at midday if you keep going
it’s like the night in there, like
curls of smoke in the milky way,
like it’ll crush you or expand you,
like an infinite moment of being
just on the edge of black.

Cara L McKee grew up in West Yorkshire and now stays on the west coast of Scotland where she gets to work in a village library. Her pamphlets are Little Gods, published with Roswell Publishing in Autumn 2023, and First Kiss, published by Maytree Press in 2020. Her poems have appeared in Under the Radar, Gutter, Flights, Obsessed with Pipework and elsewhere. Her website is Skeleton Architecture and she’s on Instagram and Facebook @caralmckee