The Matchstick Men and the Rainbow

A circle of chairs – lace-backed, pink chintz style
in the day-lounge of Wits End old folk’s home.

Above the beige-tiled fifty’s fireplace, ten matchstick men
all do their best to climb a rainbow, with its Prussian blue
oil-primed linen sky …

their arms outstretched as if to touch the fluffy, puffs
of whisper-coloured smudges

and fork-tailed, blue-black specks that seem to flit, perchance
to fly, to somewhere on the other side.

“If they can, why can’t I?” they might well wonder.
Shed the odd tear or two, if only matchstick men could …