Adamant on the Edge of Dreams by Lisa Marguerite Mora
I don’t know what God is doing.
He sears me with the palm of his hand,
hollows me out with light
so that I can’t feel my bones anymore.
And my grief—
not that gut wrenching stuff,
is just water that flows and flows, flows unimpeded now—
I am open,
undammed and not drowning,
not fighting for my life.
Why is it I can see your face so clearly?
I am floating (90% water, they say),
my ribcage, fluid, caging and releasing.
I have become amphibian.
I do not know whether to walk or swim.
I miss the bones
of the earth, dark stones, polished pain hard beneath my feet.
Gravel and grit I need. Dust. Dirt.
Black and pungent.
Please.
But there is just light split
over water
that spills
and your face
adamant on the edge of dreams.
And I wake
as if you were really here.
Lisa Marguerite Mora is a prize winning poet and a freelance editor. She conducts creative writing workshops, and this year has completed a poetry manuscript and a first novel.
She lives in Los Angeles, California.
I was influenced by the idea of an edge while depicting the figure – who fluctuates between pictorial and pictographic. The waking in the poem seems to be another edge, or a disappearing edge, delineating realms of water & light, idea & memory, as well as the all encompassing natural, visceral world.
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