Two Aprons
after Arshile Gorky
I have my limitations, I can only paint.
Each silver tube has its own sound,
its own idea of life and how it might be lived.
Here’s the yellow of Nan’s Portuguese pinny,
I heard its cockcrow from the drawer –
and me, not even of the generation that wears aprons,
though I’m wearing one now, its white cottons
unravelling like the lines of this painting.
I release the bird from the stuffy drawer,
its wattle and plumage crushed,
yet the colours still sing to the morning.
While I search for clues to Nan’s journeys,
her many tongues jumble in my apron’s pockets,
and this cockerel will star on the canvas.
Katrina Naomi is completing a PhD in creative writing at Goldsmiths with a focus on violence in poetry. Her work has appeared in The TLS, Poetry Review and The Spectator. She lives in south London and is originally from Margate. www.katrinanaomi.co.uk