Part-Arc of a Rainbow

A new poem by Ruth Padel.

(Photo By PHOTO: EDMUND SHAW/ CREATIVE COMMONS)

As if you saw

     driving back from a sprint to the supermarket
     to get your nearly       but not quite       dying mum
     a pack of squeegee sponges and a new
     washing-up brush       the old one is filthy
     she can hardly see the sink any more

something you’ve never come across before
the part-arc of a rainbow
slicing through a chink in metal cloud

and as you go

      that stump of rainbow fades
      but shreds of its hidden core       appear
           in other sectors of grey air
like swamp-light       flashing out of
   and back into       the corner of your eye

as if somewhere beyond all this heaviness

     there’s a whole skyful of neon
some wild fishnet pyre
of the spectrum       all the glittering hidden
wavelengths of memory       tangled as the ancient cottons
in her long-abandoned sewing-casket

it is a rainbow strip-tease

    you will never see the end
and because you’re on a curly country road
the angles keep shifting       you don’t know
who or what is round the next bend
  until you see the whole semi-circumference entire.

Ruth Padel is professor of poetry at King’s College London. Her new collection, Emerald, will be published by Chatto & Windus in July