Hello, Little Bird

(for Xiena)

You hate that the sun’s always out,

even when it rains,

and all you want is to be cold.

It is like a bee behind a curtain

that won’t fly out of the window,

can’t find its way out of the room.

You say that sometimes

you wish the sun would fuck off and die,

then feel bad for wishing that.

If I tell you it’s raining here,

you ask how much rain. You see snow

on the news and it makes you sad.

You have started taking pictures.

The bougainvillea across your sister’s face –

two exposures of two lovely things.

You send me a picture of a rubber duck

on a windowsill – one perfect half

of bright orange beak, bright yellow body

and the other half bleached almost grey.

You say the sun is a big tongue;

it is licking the flavour from everything.

You say a boy you went to school with

jumped from a roof, that heroin there

feels like a ghost no one will believe in,