Woman. Storm. Fish. Braid.
Andrea L. Watson
Originally
published in Issue XVIII of Vulgata, February 2008.
My neighbor stands on her doorstep, arms
the color of abode, pulling the tortoise brush
down her scooped back, through her long hair,
until it seems a ribbon-work of restless water.
She tells me her bedroom has been captured
by a loom, replacing a swath of shadow strands
with threads of saffron, indigo, pomegranate.
The Tlingit tribe believes
when a woman brushes her hair outside
her front door, storms will come.
I watch Adelina on Wednesday from my window
She beckons me inside. The weave is everything
she tells me, more magnificent than the design.
Friday, her blue door opens to skeins of showers:
I make my fish-plans 'though there are hair-knots
and her fingers tangle in the dawn-washed web.
At the river, I cast and reel, though clouds form a carpet,
torrential rains quick coming. Line and leader balancing
to the rod, I lose bump of metallic blue shading to silver
as storms slow trouts' leaping time. Will I leave emptyhanded?
Later, on my porch, I find a prophecy wrapped in paer,
her tightly wefted tapestry of raindbows, and I think
our friendship is like her hair, hip deep and braided.
the color of abode, pulling the tortoise brush
down her scooped back, through her long hair,
until it seems a ribbon-work of restless water.
She tells me her bedroom has been captured
by a loom, replacing a swath of shadow strands
with threads of saffron, indigo, pomegranate.
The Tlingit tribe believes
when a woman brushes her hair outside
her front door, storms will come.
I watch Adelina on Wednesday from my window
She beckons me inside. The weave is everything
she tells me, more magnificent than the design.
Friday, her blue door opens to skeins of showers:
I make my fish-plans 'though there are hair-knots
and her fingers tangle in the dawn-washed web.
At the river, I cast and reel, though clouds form a carpet,
torrential rains quick coming. Line and leader balancing
to the rod, I lose bump of metallic blue shading to silver
as storms slow trouts' leaping time. Will I leave emptyhanded?
Later, on my porch, I find a prophecy wrapped in paer,
her tightly wefted tapestry of raindbows, and I think
our friendship is like her hair, hip deep and braided.