Technicolour by Tamiko Dooley



I knew it was you

By the way the violet caught my eye

The last refracted hue of a multi-coloured arc

Earth promising a world in colour would one day come

I was driving home in the rain

From another grey day

As cloudy and confusing as they had all been

Since I heard

The folk song we would sing in the car

Started playing on the radio

I could see your curls blasting in the wind

Knees bobbing to the beat

Hands tapping the fabric of your mum’s Honda

I cranked up the volume when it came on

Wound down the windows

Wipers cleaned away the last of the sky's teardrops

I indicated right and turned the corner into my street

That’s when it happened

A burst of impossible broken white

The colours we’d learned together:

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain

Charging across the road in front of me

Blinding me as you used to do

Powerful, gleaming, victorious

I knew, then, that you were still being you

Still in technicolour somewhere

Lighting up the sky with your flame.

---

Tamiko is a half-Japanese mother of two. When there's no pandemic, she's hired as a wedding pianist from time to time.