Kate Colby – Four Reflections


Kate Colby

Four Reflections


                         1

Claptrap reflections, or nothing lies
the first time around.

In binocular trafficking of pools
in badlands shadow
pinhole flats
a lightning

field of
poles

                         2

Rosetta stone of desert floor
draws vapor clouds and mesas,
cataracts of exile,
where firmament meets figuration
in tablature of erasure.

             The golden calf melts into its reflection;
             is this a genesis or third refraction?

Coming down from the mount,
Moses cups water in his hands.
He sees the people in it.

                         3

Reflections as aphasia, where
distortion parts seas.

A hothouse of cell walls distended
with chlorophyll, unconsummated,
these dead-
ended intentions.

And this light like fireflies
battering cupped hands.
Pinholes of tiny eclipses.

                         4

Your letters read like crop circles
in a boundless field of green.

Or, on a glassy sea a ship runs into a rock.
The sky a boundless blue screen, flickering,
these intonations of immortality.
And our skin crawls
with mites,
which we brush off in favor of;

such that, peering over the edge,
the mirroring sea becomes us.

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