Malachite

Colour is not a safe catchment. In a breath we take in all the hues. We lose our boundaries, and become non-specific. If we hold closed the door, we are only to be found died in the wool. My partner and I take excursions into the supposed other gender. We wear the wrong colour, on painted nails, talking like the others taken mistaken pronouns. Sitting in the seam between two giant cushions we lift ourselves up to take a ride out. Opening the bike shed to reveal an unexpected unofficial anniversary offering of a malachite mountain bike. Handsprayed with love and deviance. Pushing out the Pashley for myself, we dipped out to take in bountiful surrounds, sounds of trees creeking themselves on either side of the cycle way, down through the arches of the canal aquaduct where dripping long stalactites narrowly miss a rhyme, and we stop.

The smell has gotten too much. Enough is enough. Chained to a rotten fence stump.We break off from our respectively newly and much loved rides, a wild garlic detour to pull up the green and white champagne bursts of light in the ditches that line the woodland terminal where we alight. A swift twist rips the stem from its umbilical grip. Just enough for a few salads and a caserole. We'll be out again soon enough after all.