Mary MacRae
Origami
The plane approaching high over the city
could be taking an aerial photograph:
perfect day, air clear, too early for heat haze.
Guided by a black symmetry of rivers
the pilot edges up the delta to an image
of peopled streets, a neat T-shaped bridge,
pauses to focus his shot:
something small falls.
In a flash the city is its own negative,
flesh black, hair flaming white,
all the wristwatches synchronised
at the moment of exposure.
The boy running over the bridge is caught
in that molten instant between footrise and footfall,
the woman waiting for the bank to open
now a shadow printed on a wall.
After the photo the pilot didn’t take
it can never be, nothing but the light
which made chromosomes dance,
inscribed messages on bone,
scanned now and deciphered, so that
in a quiet park where children come to see
where black rain once fell on ash
are clouds of white folded paper cranes.
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| Illustration by Ruari Macinnes |
Page(s) 52
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