Of book and eye
I opened a large book about Southern California.
Painted Rock, a place of warning, where the
Dreamer,
a High Priest of the Feathered Serpent, sent out word
for all people to gather. He preached love, humility,
and that what we see can be projected onto us by
others.
While he spoke, a great bird flew into a cloak of rain.
I read about Mount Shast, the Lodge of the Great
Spirit.
A Red Indian princess is said to have disobeyed
her father, the chief, and ran away up the mountain,
only to freeze to death at the top.
Her pointed thumb protrudes, killing anyone
who follows her example.
Next to the book lay the newspaper you bought.
There was a picture of a Bosnian forest.
On a leafy tree the corpse of a young woman
suspended by a black fabric belt.
Her feet were white, the soles muddy.
The fingers lightly clenched
as though death arrived while she picked flowers.
I looked at her red sweatshirt and white skirt,
the young leaves that floated in crystal light.
She had no name. No one cried when her body
was cut down. Yet the trees -
birch, chestnut, beech - were as still
as the Painted Caves in the rugged mountain
where a black circle on a wall is said
to depict a solar eclipse in 1677.
I closed the book. After a while
my hands were still too.
There was a soft summer wind,
graffiti on a hoarding, an ambulance siren
dividing the street.
You fetched a glass of mango punch.
I watched your white shirt
as you walked out the room.
I followed it as far as the eye could go;
not for remembering,
or anticipating the taste of something exotic:
but simply that I could not let go
of what was white, and pure.
Page(s) 33-34
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
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- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The