This poem won Stratford Literary Festival's Young Poets' 11-16 competition 2022.
Synaesthesia
You say I’m 80% green
just like March, April, May
like C and E and A
and all the words they paint
like number 3 and number 8
and all the tastes they make.
I’m 80% green but 20% white -
a hilltop after brief snow
light breaking through the canopy
dead-nettles, snowdrops, cow parsley
the washed up swash of the sea.
You experience life beautifully.
Am I shades in-between -
tones which remind you of feelings, memories,
the places we've been?
You say you read in rainbows
that my name is a frosted leaf
that yours is pure yellow -
sunshine, celandines, daffodils.
You watch the garden fill with birdsong
an orange ripple of blackbird
a bright shaft of wren. You say you can
see the hum of a bee, that it tastes sweet, fizzy.
You tell me, but I cannot see.