#4 Self-Portrait

JP/EN

©Kate Dalton

1. I.
2. We begin always in darkness.

The first white tip,
a fuse, asks
for black
soil, wet, and humming,
ready to receive
sight unseen this séance.

This new life flashes.

Later, this motherless
child, seed shell discarded
devoured and
adrift among sun and rain,
spindly and grasping
at the tall trees, will shy away
from wind and nourishment,
break her roots
and she shall flower
year after year.

The time for understanding
is not now.        rest

This is a strange call for love,
for a mother’s prayer.
The moon,
not yet ready for mourning,
leaves her prayer unanswered.

Even in newness there must be light.

1. II.

Never forget:
fire lies under the deep
heavy black waters.
In that blue heat
broken bits of history
are melted down into a new you.
An island rises from the sea,

In a soft slush of ocean,
Venus rises also.

Youthful, sharp
and breathtaking
in the gloaming
the crescent moon
gains more light,
more stars follow.
More blue will
become pearl.

But first the waves
must be quelled.
This isle, by silver sight
a growing harbor,
cannot be my guiding light.

I am tossed again and again
against its tides.

III.
Low tide brings the first
flock of dreams with
just enough shadow to settle down,
to hide away for the night.

Come morning the bay
will be crosscut with garden paths,
its arteries cloaked.
The child marches through
the lalang’s breezy sway,
bag slung across her back,
in search of spiders and slugs,
lithe stringy worms,
grasshoppers on display,
red-eyed leaf hoppers,
flowers for a notebook.

I watch her wander away
and my love sits in the pit
of my stomach like
the letter writer who sat
in the village, ink pot churned,
paper stacked, the brush poised.

But this is just a dream—
the letters have long decayed.
Rotting tongues tied
in heat and blindness
can only gurgle.

She’ll hold my hand
if I ask her softly.
The grip strength not yet mastered.
A wrist is too easily snapped
and broken.

It was remarked to me
a long time ago
that pain, for a tiny thing
like an insect, must be
total and complete, obliterating.

If not to be held,
what is breath for?

1. IV.

In the evenings the child
prefers to sleep on the beach.
I wake in the middle of the night
to find her gone, the sand still
warm from the little dent she made.
So many tiny steps
In that gulf between us,
bruises on arms barely starting to flower,
pulled wave after wave
by the glittering shore of fallen stars,
silver dreams like junk on the floor.

                                 Scrawny thing

I could barely see her
along the horizon now.
The tide rushed at me,
body-slammed into my chest,
a nasty knock to the throat
before I could call out.
Now and then I catch
a glimpse of her smile
out of the corner of my eye.
I hear a sharp peal of laughter.
But I forget her soon enough.

1. V.

Like the moon tonight
I am open, bright.
But for the poem
you clutch at my hair and shoulder
as if I’m someone you’ve never met —
you don’t understand the words.
Your fingers sally across
the lines, evoke
a dry and raspy prayer.
Shushed my words
so, as though you too
Were swallowing my desire.

You grab my wrist for the second time,
demand for stories, knead
at my waist, unlock the trembling
cadence of my knees.
You reach for the moon’s softness,
but forgiveness was
withdrawn a long time ago.

No day, year, or month
is the hottest or cruelest.
No night is the darkest.
There is no hour,
no reconciliation upon us.

1. VI.

I should go so fast
tonight. I can’t help it.
Already tonight is the night
I’ve had three beers and tequila.

Trying to keep that wheel straight
but haven’t I always
kept that wheel straight?
And tonight is the night I wished
things were different.

And here I am
jerking heaving
barely standing
riding into blinding lights.
Above me the moon asked
if I was hungry.
And I was so hungry and
so spent and what
would that be?
My chest hurts,
I say over and over,
my chest hurts.

Only under a street lamp
can I reveal my loss.

VII.
I’ve been out looking for moths
but I couldn’t tell you.

Someone who is not aware of death
will tell everyone everything,
will find in any mirror a vault.
The spirit cannot recognize herself.

Even moths will retreat,
fatigued, and drop their wings
in silence.

VIII.
There are two dark sides
of the moon: one gives rest to her countenance.
The other an eternal secret harbor
where the banished ships never leave.

I wear a shroud weaved of lifetimes.
What isn’t finished this season
will rise again in another.
But first, we must sleep, cower
under the earth, nestle in her embers.
We must find the grace we lost,
let old selves die, let death
soften the bonds —

What quarrel could we have
with hope when roots are fresh and cold
and white?

My love,
I wish for your heart to break open
into mad colours of green and gold.

Beautiful pearl,
                     open your eyes and see.

About the Author

Jacqueline Chia is a jazz musician and gardener. She is slowly making her way back to her love for poetry.

About I SEE YOU

Rooted in Toronto’s BIPOC communities, I SEE YOU is an art project to collectively explore the meaning and importance of acknowledgment through creative writing and portraits. Read the project statement here.

(Copyedited by Ashendri Picon)