Lois Marie Harrod
Venetian Blinds
I like the way the light binds the skin,
makes a bird cage of the body.
The stripped neck patches of the common loon,
the sooty shearwater's pleated wing.
I raise my arms, bound at the wrist,
breasts float the dark ripples.
When I hold my breath, I sink under the buoy
that divides shallows from the deep.
At the pool's bottom I wear the spirals
of my own descent, my eyes ribbon open.
Five fingers slit the sun,
My crazy lover is wearing his brindled suit.
I explain how I will throw his shadow
onto a cloud, it will take a stiff light.
He holds his mouth just so—
My words find their prison.
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