• Vol. 03
  • Chapter 03
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See The Woman In The Copper Lights

See her.

She is the woman carrying
the camera. She is alone
near the water. She is under
the milky sky blue, she is
cut out, black.

She watches the boy –
a bird hatched too soon
clucking at himself
rippling back.
His elbows are sharpened,
a bird ready to soar.

She is not a mother or a wife
yet – she may never be. She
is not someone who speaks
her mind – she speaks her brain.
She is not a surgeon
or an editor – she may never be.

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See The Woman In The Copper Lights

She is an artist, is a photographer,
is a fable teller, is a lover,
is a traveller, is a speaker of tongues,
is a believer in God, is a thinker,
is a watcher of moving things,
is a bird in a beech tree,
is a night hawk near the moon.

She sees the boy swim.

Copper lights chant on mountains
and volcanoes, islands are too far
away. She leaves the camera.

               

Flap your wrists
                fly off your ankles
                dive in deep,
                disappear for too long
                let the sea bring you back.

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See The Woman In The Copper Lights

She

       falls

                in
thinking about drowning
sinking or swimming.
She lives in the black water
the sun has stolen the site –
feeling gold fish and weeds
she comes back.

She swims –
                and there are no roads,
                barriers or people.
                She does not have to prove
                her identity.

She swims –
                and the water sees her,
                hears her cries, touches
                her,       knows her
differences.

She swims –
                and her skin, and thick
                neck, her black hair,
                large fingers, is chopping
                reflecting in the waves.

3

See The Woman In The Copper Lights

She swims –
             to the boy, a shadowed
             fish shooting atop
             clips of water. The boy
             does not see her.

She swims –
                bringing herself, her body,
                her mind after the boy into the waves, against
                the world’s water.

She swims.
See the woman.

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