Under A Pink And Blue Sky

under a pink and blue sky

babies in their cribs awake and cry

longing to be dressed in pink and blue

immediately; the

older children on their way to school

miles from the Fair grow wistful

for cotton candy, wax-paper packed in a lunchbox

by the gherkins and the fruit salad, crammed in

near the meatloaf sandwich on an onion roll:

pure tasty pink and blue spun out of nothing

although they know
it isn't summer anymore.

the baker in the town square

halts amid the jonquil icing batches

unprepared for the flood of calls

for pink and blue frosted cakes

stacked end to end and will they

reach the moon or 

the Princess counting her gowns in a half-baked dream

who throws the whole lot out starting over

in pink and blue chintz that's satinly ordered up

on the pink princess phone this

very sheer pink and blue minute: veiled illusion, tulle-

bring swatches of pasteled chalks as seen from space;

the astronauts gaze befuddled from the capsule at

an earth redecorated pink and blue and ask themselves

will the sea rise soon in 50 metre waves or more

dousing the aurora

in ribbons of pink and blue moire?

not daring to ask Houston.

and will you remember suddenly struck

by candy coloured lightning through and through

everything you thought you knew

for the final examination

oh! but you'd forgotten

pink and blue
you realized later
thinking things through
making do with an A-

mary angela douglas 22 january 2014