A Woman’s Fable by Vikki C.

A Woman’s Fable

Start alone, the vast lake a vanity mirror
frozen after a famous flood,
the animals, content, afloat in their pairings.

And I, a struggling singularity,
combing history for the source —

a lush garden in the depression of your chest.
The cosmos coughed up by some infectious god.

They say naming things makes it intimate —
but I refuse to grow attached.
Not to men or lilacs beneath the hard frost.

You knew after me, nothing is ever free.
The cost of a bare canvas, the gleaming skin of an apple.

To live beyond the mind, an art.
In this frame or that, straining to paint us —

faith, a fine stroke of gold on the iris,
before meltwater displaces effort.

Love, like this fickle cascade of hair
— already changing shape on its way out.

*

Vikki C. is a British-born ‘Best of The Net’ nominated author, poet and musician whose literary work explores the intersections of science, ecology, existentialism and the human condition. She is the author of THE ART OF GLASS HOUSES (Alien Buddha Press, 2022) – a chapbook reimagining the liminal spaces of memory, heritage and the metaphysical. Vikki’s first full-length collection WHERE SANDS RUN FINEST (DarkWinter Press), is forthcoming in February 2024. Vikki’s poetry and prose appear or are forthcoming in places such as EcoTheo Review, The Belfast Review, Ice Floe Press, Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale & Sparrow, Acropolis Journal, Boats Against The Current, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, Origami Poems, Jerry Jazz Musician, Mythic Picnic, Fevers Of The Mind Poetry & Art, Ellipsis Zine, Across The Margin, The Write-In (National Flash Fiction Day), Literary Revelations, Loft Books, Lazuli Literary Group, Salò Press, Igneus Press and other venues. She was a finalist in the Jerry Jazz Musician 63rd Short Fiction Contest (August 2023). Follow her on Twitter at @VWC_Writes