Magdalena Ball
cloudlike piles
opaque not white
coloured yellow by chromate ions
copper blue
electrolyte
my finger runs along the table
picks up a trace on the tongue
I wanted to talk about skin instead
the salty taste of it
as animal covering
preceding the living tissue
below the protective barrier
basement membrane, connective tissues
all those things I needed
to give and take and give
without the language
it was touch and go
a brush, a sigh, a hint only
back to the grain
underneath the colour
the lacrimal fluid
the shading is black post black
abstracted as contrast
a window that opens onto a wall
onto a fluorescent light onto parchment
where you are, now alone
a fragment, and whole
just another woman
as alike as unlike
united by what we know
can’t share
and are sharing in this
public inland space
Magdalena Ball is Managing Editor of Compulsive Reader. She is the author of several novels and poetry books, most recently, High Wire Press, published in 2018 by Flying Island Press. She has shortlisted in or won a number of literary prizes including the Queensland Poetry Festival Philip Bacon Ekphrasis Award and the Newcastle Poetry Prize.