Tuesday 13 January 2015

Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace

Will we brace ourselves against the chaos or relax into the storm, turning and tumbling until we are set down again in another place entirely?
Pleasure comes to me in a dream, her harrowed loveliness holding all my desires. She comes monobrowed, antique, dressed in pinks and greens. She comes with a tiny bird hanging from her thorn necklace. She sees not, neither does she covet. Did I say covet? I mean comet, of course. She tears through the night sky, her steel-capped boots ghosting a trail of sparks.
She dips her brush in curdled milk, paints me a white painting, a moon, a bride's book of psalms. Or is it Common Prayer? She paints these solid things to feed me. Here, she says, this is a lettuce. It cleans the blood, and she shows me her back pierced and riveted. Her dark hair is tied up in a hairpiece upon which the butterflies might rest. She is as sad and serious as frozen linen.
Here is my house by the sea, she says. The storms it has seen. She tilts towards me.
Will we brace ourselves this time, she asks, or will we relax into the storm, turning and tumbling until we are set down again in another place entirely?

The copyright of this post belongs to Claire Steele