WHISKY KISSES

    WHISKY KISSES

She was such a neat and tidy person,
Compact and sturdy.
Sensible.
Like a mature somebody.

Some days wearing all one colour,
All blue.  All yellow.
All green.  All red.
No beige.
And sometimes she went complex,
Wearing dots and stripes,
Zigzags and circles.
A rainbow of colour
Lighting up the concrete.

People coped with single colours,
With sequinned sunglasses,
With stripes and dots, circles and zigzags
But absolutely could not get on with
Puffball skirts and false eyelashes,
Lipstick slashes and whisky kisses.

This, they said resentfully,
Was a woman acting out of character.
No-one can put up with that for long,
A concrete turning into an abstract.

Act your age, they demanded.
She just laughed, knowing she was already acting it.
Refusing to be pinned down.
Refusing to be identified.

I am, she said,
A Kandinsky and a Constable.
Get used to it.
                                       ©2020 Gwen Grant