Phil Powrie
Iodine
In the iodine of your eyes,
there’s a goldsmith tinkering with a casket.
His appliqués are the wings of butterflies,
the chirps of puffins,
the smell of the beach in autumn.
His casket lies on the dried seaweed, unhinged;
it’s packed with pharmaceutical miniatures –
phials, powders, poisons –
and natural disasters –
tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones.
In the iodine of your eyes,
there’s the flicker of blowtorches against metal,
sparks bouncing off visored masks;
there are spiders spun on sextants,
ships’ logs for unknown continents,
giant fish plucked from coral reefs,
jellyfish from inland seas,
waiting to sting.
In the iodine of your eyes,
there are frescoes daubed in crushed chalk and blood,
tribes of nomadic warriors, silent on the shore,
galleys where once we rowed in chains,
and fierce janissaries who knew no mercy.
There are the cliffs you jump from in despair,
there’s the chainmail shirt you wear,
and the white flag you wave
at the end of a long night of love.
In the iodine of your eyes,
there’s a colour, a haunted colour,
a colour I can’t remember.
Page(s) 45
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