Tonight's Poet Corner: The Symbol Of

The Symbol Of

by Belinda Roddie

This is just an outline
of how we begin and end,
of how our lines intersect
before they're back to parallel
and forced to repel the magnetism.

I draw your fingers over mine,
using pencil because the ink will make
this far too permanent. Everything
is temporary, and the dust of graphite
just seems to emphasize that reality.

When two ballerinas pose for me,
their toes half-digested within the maws
of hungry pointe shoes, I let the canvas crease
under my brush. The geometry demands
a pressure point, a level of anxiety that I
can add color to - reds and greens and blues.

You are a collection of dots and segments,
of criss-crosses and strict angles, but
when I add your curves later, the shapes form
a mosaic of faces, all coated with cement,
their teeth glittering with broken glass
and marbles buried into each nostril.

I make little for my art, and you make
little time for my attention. When we
are perpendicular to each other, there is
the hope that we will meet again - but only if
we convene in one small, blotted black circle.