Rosebay

Rosebay

Sunday. You woke at eight, clumsy with a sudden admiration for the uninhabitable, rust-colored outdoors. At nine, you pressed your stubbled cheek to the window and murmured heavily: "What is pink? A rose is pink, by a fountain's brink. What is red? A poppy's red in its barley bed." You still had that last report to send. A week's work last. Those Sunday mornings, you wore a fleecy robe, sneaking from behind to zap me with static. You would tell me about the line in the sand that you had been drawing as a child at the beach, how quickly it blurred, was washed away, how it made your father chuckle, stay longer. We both knew the vastness of space and were looked after. The harvester hummed in the simple distance, even through the panes you could feel its tremor, some hill hiding it.