Sarah Cave, excerpts from An Arbitrary Line

Photo Sphere, March 2015 

water/ ocean turning 

stomach churned
and in the freeze frame of future history

monks paddle through milk-sea

and plastic waste

desert. Coastline

mist                                 horizon concealed                         mist

against face               solitude                     silence

                                 solitude                     silence

the tower                  mist                           the tower             mist

a bird alights             long legs                    a bird alights

vertical. Coastline

mist mist mist mist                      mist mist mist mist mist mist horizon hidden in mist mist mist mist mist mist mist mist plain sight against solitude silence silence solitude mist mist mist mist though which the mist mist mist mist mist mist mist mist mist mist mist mist frames the alighting mist mist mist mist long legs of a bird alighting through mist mist mist mist to the tower

Fatherhood in Three Connective Panels

             1

Konstantin’s cradle
flightless wings loom above
Scheherezade’s

matchstick crow feasting
on eggshell

               2

Anton’s black feathers
askew    a dull murmur
of morning

Konstantin brings light
feeds Anton soft entrails
still warm      the rabbit

now cold


                3

Absent fathers              

       Konstantin
becomes Slava
his life is dancing
leaves fallacious
prophesy

The bear returns
litter…        Slava

an egg

cannot recall regurgitation

remembers the ticks

but now          //          no response

he cracks        //           hatched

a gull’s egg 

eating the content

contemplating

the jagged remains

cutting his finger


On shell

—Sarah Cave