splitting from herself

SPLITTING FROM HERSELF


Splitting from herself, from what she was,
hoping that she might
spend just one more torrid night
with him, she could not reach her goal, because
what she had separated was what he
most loved in her, the com-
bination of aplomb
that she had lost, and bonnefemmie.

Inspired by a poem by the new Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, Ruth Padel. A great-great granddaughter of Charles Darwin, she succeeds Christopher Ricks.
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-offBlack. One longObsidian 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 andGarnet spindleOf 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 addA curve to all that straight. And opposition White. She paints black first. A grindstone belly Hammering a smaller shapeBeneath a snakeOf 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 touchAnd miss. That flash, where whiteLets black get close, that dagger of not-quite contact,Catspaw panic, quiver on the wheatField 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.

© 2009 Gershon Hepner 5/17/09