Thinking on a Summer Day
Paskalina Bourbon

The sun reaches down an arm of light--
an octopus
beating the earth from its celestial cave,
reverberations like pulsing feet,
its dance,
an unasked unanswerable question.
Drumming a caress,
the tentacles flit--
a leaf becomes stained glass
a face, geometric shadow.

I lose my eyes in my vision,
myself in my seeing.
I am the face of a timpani,
swimming in a rhythm of light,
frozen in a fingerless hand,
its embrace
a suction of overdetermined color,
its grasp
a prison of underdetermined shape.