MEMORY AND FORGETTING

after the painting by K. Louise Judd

always this 
disappearance
this impending loneliness      
  of my twin sister
our lariat      a lemniscate    


always  
erasure    
a fogged mirror 
   our dour glance 
my      partial
reflection


I fail to keep her    
my own owl pale      dark goddess 
reed thin and silent    
caught in midair flight 
of thought


always 
                   the almost 
touch at the lariat’s X
fingerless lace opera gloves 
black satin                 confection
her unraveling 


gown grows 
shorter and shorter
                             falls to red 
poppy blossoms    
a stray curl 
of black ribbon

SELF-PORTRAIT:
UNIDENTIFIED DECEASED
FEMALE POLICE SKETCH



Everything’s an approximation:
Lacks the cruel clarity of a photograph.

Composite

Here I am.
Nameless. My mouth drawn,
Generously. Nose too small
To be known by those who loved me.

Scars & Marks

Small nicks on knuckles and cuts on fingers.
Pierced ears. A scar that traces the rim of one hipbone.

I wish, now, I could lengthen it to an initial
Or carve an ex libris into my flesh.

Confession

I never invited
Another glance
After that last time.

Never guessed
The next loving touch
Would lift me

With clinical precision.
A chilling
Tenderness.




INTERLUDE

inspired by Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast



i.

Palace grandeur
A serliana

A parapet
Threaded with roses

A nymphaeum
Where the statues move

Ω


In his hand
Tendrils of smoke

I must not
Look in his eyes

Ω

The days are long
And I tire of trinkets

Ω

Every night a proposal
Bows before its rejection

Ω

A walled garden
At its center, a stone fountain

Winter sheathes one side in silence
The other trills and trickles its song of melt


ii. The Week Away


It is enough
To walk undiscovered
As any other woman
In a crowd
Where I cannot
Answer to Beauty


iii.

Few find pleasure
In a magic mirror

Ω

The garden again
Mute and silver

The fountain wears
A thick cloak of snow

Ω

This was not my will

Two caryatids stand
At the palace gate

I know them
By their jealous eyes

Ω

How can our happiness be complete
When I see them suffer
And enjoy it?




Sarah Elizabeth Colona is a graduate of George Mason University's MFA program. Her poems have appeared in Measure: an annual review of formal poetry, The Chimaera, Six Little Things, and Umbrella. New work is forthcoming in Jabberwocky and The Ampersand Review.