(satin side against your body)
“ Affectations can be dangerous”. Gertrude Stein on hearing of Isadora Duncan’s death.
Sometimes silk seeks
to slip its painted flower
fortune, rewind the cocoon,
floats, twists, turns.
Stronger than the tensor, it pulls
the dancer into its threads
her feet at last defying gravity
upended indeed and dancing
with the sky.
Isadora was twirled
like a waxed mustache
but eurhythmia was not listed
as the cause of death.
For nothing takes colour
like silk though white shoulders
shrug,vibrant in satin next to skin.
It doesn’t matter what it
feels. The charmeuse hangs
on any armature, finds an anchor
for its web, wraps everything
in its strings. Just being fabulous
flaps like Phlebas’s last flutter.
Tightens.
Idiomatic
Dear,
I am painting the baccaras today, because I love the way the edges fade from black into deep red; light where there should be dark. I have pools of viridian and vermillion,drag shadow into the light like we once curled our backs against the world and kept the places where we touched warm. You once told me a cynic was a rose blackened in the bud, you were right about most roses. But not about baccarras.
I had my last class yesterday. Hoda asked all the interesting questions as usual. We were discussing phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions. We laughed when she asked me if it was correct to say “we hanged” and I demonstrated its connotation by circling my neck with my hands sticking my tongue out, and saying generally it refers to humans and this particular event. I am not as fluent as I want. Drama substitutes. Black draped shoulders shake around eyes ignited with laughter. We say ma a’ salaama for the last time
It means this. Taghreed has gone Egypt hoping to find a safe place to raise her sons. Maryam is a monument of Russian plastic surgery, she wants be as young as she was when her family was killed. Salwa has found her nephew in Indonesia, with some distant relations. She was terrified he had been seduced by “people.” There is a new Thai masseuse who uses the string method of hair removal, I have finished the portraits, and destroyed the photographs Here it is difficult to find paint, but nothing is impossible. I have artists quality turpentine, alhamdulillah. Small appetites satisfied, don’t necessarily grow. At home people on the coasts who read the news will tell me something I don’t know about the butterfly effect. A bat will wave black wings over his victim fanning peaceful dreams while the red flows.. Somewhere far away darkness will descend unopposed. Nothing is without consequence.
The veil that hangs over the stones in the souq is resolute. The sun that fades everything begins to fail, as dust makes a lens of sunset. The mountains begin to unfold their ridges like black rose petals that keep the light curled away. Just for a moment, the fire seems to flare from deep within and of course I thought I’d write you because you never knew about this. Beneath the blight, like a book charred in the fire blasts from its binding, words at the center remain. Though the years advance and a carapace of darkness covers me, baccarras will always send my thoughts to you.
S