To my cousin Maria, who likes yellow

(And it really is a spiffing colour…)

Buttercups, lemons and Vegemite jars
Raincoats and Bic pens, garden bin lids, butter –
A maple leaf slapped on a tumble of white
Someone dumped old shelves on Esplanade road
Soggy leaf piles make a perilous coating
on the black stone steps cutting steep down the alleyway –
Collisions of fire and rust; yellow and red

Bite into yellow in pineapple lumps
or slosh it down, tingly in fizzing lemonade –
Juxtapose it with grey for sober banking
or mix with sunshine for nasturtiums and gorse

Bananas and grapefruit, hobbit front doors
Fire hydrants, saffron and those lines on the road –
The grandparents’ car, as cheerful as a bath duck
lets you know where to find it in dark airport carparks
There’s a squirt of it in the dishwater and a dab of it on a penguin –
a flash on a mohua and a dash on a gannet
That myna’s been dipping its beak into the paint again!

From the bright of book spines to the pollen from daisies,
shining, happy yellow trails sparks across our lives –
pricking, poking and erupting
like a feast of fireworks; friendly as a fruit shop.