Outlines
In sun, your shadow on the wall
is flat but beautifully shaped
outline curvaceous, tall,
but devoid of colour, grey-faced.
You bloom from its flat form,
bulge out into the room,
round and green with your
turned wood stem.
No sun and your twin
is barely there: silent, dim,
hides inside your round reality
your full 3D
with no colour, shape, like
shadowed thoughts hidden and quiet
yet tangible as the wall
on which you etch your form whole.
In sun your living image
is a flat black mirage -
a cut-out of self and character -
flat black barrier
to the real thing. I could make you
out of paper, trace the line of you
but would you be as real?
it would consign your round green feel,
make you fall from the pristine,
diminish your full green being
to an edge all one-dimensional
a dark twin on the wall
who does not count as you:
your form is perfect, rounded,
in full-view, not hidden like a word
on a page: flat deceptive view
that hides the whole totality
of life and breath, the rounded being
and secret self: reality
of form and heart in meaning
moving and alive. The twin inside
is true to your edges as your age,
you are your face and eyes
outlined by words on a page.
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