"These Blues", Amanda Yeo

I've always loved the nautical satin spill
of hours just after death of night and
before the earliest buses or insomniac
bird would start to stir and squeak, for how

placidly it welcomes both stillness and din: a star
-gazer or familiar strangers drunk and drinking
at the void deck — how lenient yet absorbing
the indigo concave that says do what you want,
I could care but I have the galaxy to placate;

for its rustling in quietude can actually smell
like how it feels: spiced scents of floral and
twig, nocturnal secretors that creep through
dusk and pierce the air while traffic sleeps,
the rally joined by vapour buckling down
on waxy leaves: restless triplets
meditating to globules the aroma of dew —
there must be a reason dawn smells like teal.

I love the astronomical train of midnights'
gown and the sprightly spruce of a civil brew
tingling my nostrils whenever lungs lean
over for three fuller breaths. And now I wish
past the sun, these blues would find you in rest.