"self-portrait" (poem based on a Regina Walker photograph)

“self-portrait”

Just there, she glimpsed herself

where a thought fell to shadow,

pooling on a curious canvas

brushed by staggered gods

of happenstance and confetti.

The sun is curving over towers and clocks.

The city bursts one moment of a modal skein

to scatter dreaming in the naked open air.

This dark-living Ophelia floats just now,

pleased beneath streaming transient lights.    

photo by Regina Walker -- see Rubaru