Cilla McQueen
Old sailors with their
celestial navigation knew
the trick: not to look straight
at, but past, catching
your star deviously
(a delicate business, this,
like remembering a dream)
in the corner of the eye
Continually you elude me;
I'm having trouble with
this obliquity -
there is, for example, this
mouth above my forehead, this
shoulder beyond my cheekbone, a
familiar gesture of yours,
somewhere, only just
out of vision -
Each time, naively, I
forget about the old
sailors and look, directly, to
see you disintegrate in
mocking ripples, then
reassemble gradually your
familiar fragments as a hand, an
eyebrow, a bone beneath the skin
just beyond the corner of
my eye
It is the plight of
Orpheus, who in the
moment of turning sent
his beloved
exploding in splinters
outwards into darkness
- instantly to reassemble
into a perfect image of
herself, always
henceforth
(a dream of shadow
slipping through fingers)
just beyond his field of vision -
I could remember you, easily,
if you didn't fly
apart all the time,
like this.
