Milieu

My Grandma used to make crocheted vests

for the big-bellied bottle trees up by the hospital,

rendering them gay with impeccable needlework,

brightening their bark and the outlook of passers-by;

I wondered: how did those bottle trees feel?

natty and nifty, more spiffy than spruce? or embarrassed?

costumed like patch-‘n’-match mid-80s Time Lords,

conspicuous, wrapped tight in toucan infusions

and made to act, Beau Brummells in our country town?

Last autumn my Grandma knitted me a sweater,

then I knew—for a fact, most derisively—it was the latter!

I wore it, this technicolour stitch-up, this eyesore,

all null-nift and negative spiff, less natty than cat spew;

my Gran smiled; to her I was preciousness padded,

her flesh and blood given its due;

to everyone else, I was garish and goofy and clownlike;

my friends laughed, my enemies twisted their knives;

I clenched roots and sank deep underground

Months passed, my Grandma died;

now when I cry, it’s from shame at the shame I felt,

lost in the mélange, not understanding the warmth,

my thoughts grey, not knowing what I had;

wrapped in my sweater, I walk now past the hospital,

cupping the bottle trees’ vests in my hand;

so much love, so much life stretched before me;

such tumult; such colour, such chaos;

such wisdom in the weave