wildscape. literary journal

Yellow Raincoat
by Haley DiRenzo

The tea of my childhood, Lipton Black. 
Powdered dust tucked into teabags and wrapped
in yellow label paper. Steeped haphazardly 
sometimes so strong the heavy bitter bruised
my tongue until I softened with cream 
and seven scoops of sugar. When my mother
would let me pluck sugar cubes from the pink box 
in the back of the cabinet by the matches—
the kind you might brush against a horse’s soft lips
until she takes them gentle in her mouth to dissolve—
I felt luxurious, like my English Grandmother
in her parlour. Teeth in. Hair curled. Delicate lip
of a teacup lined gold. Ohio rain singing on the roof.  
Childhood is a young girl in a yellow raincoat.
Bright note against Manchester’s grey. 
Loving horses. Hands full of sugar cubes. 
Continuing rituals. Coming in from the cold. 

about the author // Haley DiRenzo