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Smooth and sleek as the fur of night, who would imagine that you contain the jagged edges of an explosion in your composition? That you were born in a valley of thunder under a sky of glass? You are an eye - silent, deep and black. Then, I shift you towards me and away - and you blossom in the light: an abalone iris, the shimmering and glistening of coruscating waves, a waking dream bleeding into day. Your ghostly, watery bands of color puzzle me - a playful peacock. Who could explain how you are both opaque as onyx and translucent as a jellyfish? You sublimate a quenched fire, but your iridescence is cryonically preserved. Copyright 2001, Kathryn Cumming
Katie Cumming lives in Seattle, Washington. She has recently completed the University of Washington Extension Writers' Program in poetry.
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