Hedy Habra

Artwork by Anna Broome

Encounter in the Yellow Hour

You’d think we’re about to engage in an elegant minuet, right hands

raised in the ritual sequence of honor, yet her left hand waves the

bouquet of wildflowers away from me as mine struggles to hold

down my vest blown by the wind: but wait, rewind the tape to when

I first saw her walking towards me, as though floating in that sea of

wheat, holding wildflowers gathered just for me, for she must have

mistaken me from afar for a pirate with my kilt and wide-brimmed

hat: how I fooled myself, falling into my own trap, a motionless

ready-made, unable to take her into high seas like a one-legged sailor,

nor make love to her in the golden swaying waves of wheat, I, the

trickster would-be scarecrow won’t come to life like the fairy tale

frog, even the scorching heat won’t cast away my self-inflicted spell:

this is the end of the minuet, the last farewell steps of the ritual

sequence of honor, she’ll let the flowers scatter in the wind, the still

dance lasting for an instant merging end with beginning.

First published by Poetic Diversity: The Litzine of Los Angeles,

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)

Artwork by Anna Broome

Lidless Eyes

It all happened after a furtive tear trickled down followed by a larger

one, raindrops of blue sorrow forming a puddle then a pool,

drowning me and my unborn child, or was I diving into the deepest

of my eyes, undulating in the aqueous humor, eyes wide open,

staring at my baby’s crib suspended in oceanic blue by a long,

stemmed lotus flower sprouting from its center as an umbilical

chord rising towards this iridescent parachute unfolding its pearled

petals in sympathy, and even medusas wearing their mourning coat

slide like a procession of black umbrellas, a silent omen while

anemones’ lidless eyes stare at me as one of their own.

First published by Pirene's Fountain

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)

 

Artwork by Anna Broome

Origin

I have no name, no face, no age. I have lost track of my birthplace: a

grain of sand blown by the slightest breeze, I’ve crossed continents

and shores, flown over dunes and quarries, known the brush of

leaves and grass, even rested in ponds after being swept by crested

tides, always unseen, but never lonely, my edges softened by rubbing

against ruby, garnet, coral, quartz, shells, endlessly smoothing each

other’s skin, surviving the heat of scorching sun drowning in carmine

sea until that last sacrifice on the pyre where our blood melts into

layers and layers of crimson petals opening up in their last frozen

gesture. Is anyone aware that I am forever prisoner in that translucent

flower.

First published by The Smoking Poet

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)