their winching
&
hauling, their slow,
grunt-wheeled passages.
And the scars on my hands -
How soft and pervious the mother's body!
Child, a strange passion
rules this place.
Breath-holes rising through the surf, through the void
the surf leaves -
while gray gulls
vanish into clouds, as if
some god desired them,
then return,
taut, untouched, still looking.
Susan Wicks
Components ofBlack
watercolour 60" x 40"
(for Cathleen
Daly)
In clutches of pale eggs, or the bone china
of raised tea-cups, the simple snow of paper
gleams from between shadows
all
shades but
black: grey, green-blue, violet, that old indigo
across eyelids, the dark chromatic beds
of night rivers. See how this multiple darkness
pushes plump leaves aside to wind
between stems, how this slick beanstalk
has grown to block the daylight, how the tangled
limbs bruise to slate, bronze to a warm olive
shot with purple, before the chosen
stems can wilt, the pale mouths of camellias
gag open, damned to repeat for us
our eyes' clear grain, our painted jungle
of pigment, the darkness between flowers.
