Kiss

 He's gone.
 She can't believe it, can't go on.
 She's going to give up painting.
 So she paints Her final canvas, total-turn-off
Black.
 One long
Obsidian goodbye.
 A charcoal-burner's Smirnoff, The mirror of Loch Ness Reflecting the monster back to its own eye.

But something's wrong.
 Those mad Black-body particles don't sing Her story of despair, the steel and
Garnet spindle
Of the storm.

This black has everything its own sweet way, Where's the I'd-like-to-kill-You conflict? Try once more, but this time add
A curve to all that straight.
 And opposition White.
 She paints black first.
 A grindstone belly Hammering a smaller shape
Beneath a snake
Of in-betweening light.
 "I feel like this.
 I hope that you do, too, Black crater.
 Screw you.
 Kiss" And sees a voodoo flicker, where two worlds nearly touch
And miss.
 That flash, where white
Lets black get close, that dagger of not-quite contact,
Catspaw panic, quiver on the wheat
Field before thunder -
There.
 That's it.
 That's her own self, in paint, Splitting what she was from what she is.
 As if everything that separates, unites.


Copyright
from Voodoo Shop (Chatto, 2002), copyright © Ruth Padel 2002, used by permission of the author and the publisher

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