seed · brassica, ground coarse

mustard

the colour of a coat in a photograph from a decade no one talks about. the colour of the wallpaper behind the radio. the colour you remember the kitchen being as a child, though it was probably ochre instead.

a domestic colour. it does not visit; it lives somewhere. mustard turns up in the library reading lamp, on the binding of a recipe book, in the rectangle of noon light that falls across the floor in summer.

it can sour. citron is its restless cousin. copper is what it wants to be on a better day.