Double Take
theme for an artist in neptunian blue
His thinking is like water, makes mirrors, rays of the primordial thought echo about him into patterns, humid and scented, burrowing into each other until he comes out the other side of himself, puts pen behind ear, extends the hand that held it — an active nearness — mind as the arm of the heart, used for reaching. And he writes like the low summer wave; soft tap on the shoulder of your lightness, gently lifts, sets you down a little upshore, dowses you with the cool of a fresh image, with space made for new heat. He is infrared, the way sunset is both muted and sharp, good for the breath, for my breath, which doesn’t hitch, diaphragm un-bracing as I read, which is like daydreaming in motion and walking past a mirror. The heart’s squint. The memory’s frown. The spirit’s double take.
If you like, after reading this, you can go and listen to this, which is among my favourite songs of all time. Perhaps, from an angle, this poem is my Taiwanese woman in lime green.
Or, there is always this. Which is Soma. Which is more of an ethnically liminal woman in wine red.
