island flickers

from the island

. . . writing compensates for nothing, . . . is precisely there where you are not.

-- Roland Barthes*

island flickers

(from Christine's words

on yes an island)

somewhere else you speak

mediated face a screen

flickers on a phone

no don’t look not now

eyes shut to breathe the world in

hummingbird at nose

chatter flutter stop

squirrel in his tree suspends

hawk is on the move

far shore feathered now

crossing channel light in light

rises mist on dusk


*A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978), p. 100.

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