By Regan Chern, responding to Catherine Maticka’s Viridian Green
The Dyer’s Weed, Woad Bath
Grandpa brought Ming jars
from Wiesbaden, Second World War.
Went back, to be a pedestrian
with shrapnel in his calf.
I was the medieval taboo:
Don’t mix colours.
Grandpa never sought me
Or my dyer’s weed mother.
Father turning bath water to wine.
Walk in their footsteps,
go back to taste the mordant
in woad baths.
Seek forgiveness for existence,
confess secrets to stolen jars.
And the cutlery and crockery,
and the warzones
turned to homes,
all can boil, cut, pierce me.
It’ll all be monochrome.
Author Bio
Regan is in his final year of a BFA (Creative Writing) at QUT etc.… do you really need to know more than that? You could be reading my work instead, you know. It’s far better than any dry self-aggrandising drivel that I could’ve written for this bio.
If you’d like to contact me, do so through my Instagram: @regancchern