(my Mother) Midnight Sun Poem by Janice Windle

The sun is late to bed
and I was late home.
The flush at the horizon
is a mirror of my mother's
angry blood-suffused cheeks.
Alone after the showdown's ended,
I stand at my window.
The sea's a gradated bowl,
indigo at the horizon,
silver flecked with red below.
It calms me with its indifference.

I can see the dunes from here,
the sharp grasses whistling and
whining in the onshore breeze
that sweeps across the links,
into the hollow where we lay
huddled under his raincoat,
seeking each other's warmth
like small wild animals.

I begin to paint the midnight sun
and my hysterical tears dry
on my unrepentant face.