For Laure-Alda, from Francis

For this July’s Clarity of Night “Uncovered” Short Fiction Contest I created a piece of poetry (with narrative movement to meet the requirements of this contest), inspired by Jason Evans’ image of gemstones here. You can read my entry Forties Club Finalist #22 here.

Laure-Alda and Francis aren’t strangers: they are characters from one of my story ideas. This poem started as a 200-word flash fiction piece written from Francis’ POV. After a few hours I realized that the fiction could be extracted to make a poem or rather, a love letter. I’m using love letters to explore Laure-Alda and Francis, their lives, their friendship, and their current circumstances (such as it relates to the story).

Listen to the audio (MP3 link below), and be sure to spend some time at The Clarity of Night this week – there’s a lot of good reading to be had.

Audio:

For Laure-Alda, from Francis by Jade Leone Blackwater

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For Laure-Alda, from Francis

by Jade Leone Blackwater

If we awoke
clasped in sunlight
and found that the lump in my throat
had burst and broken
birthed a trinity of gemstones
to my dune grass pillow
would you cradle the tokens
to your nose as dew drops in the palm
watch colors radiate along our wrinkles,
remember our love for what dazzles,
burns us with brilliance?

Would you join me at the gorge
gulp turpentine and cinnamon wind
knock the sharp, sacred clap
which calls the rainbow-scaled fish-sage who,
in his high lip-pop dialect,
whispers “Only when the moon is dark,”
until the incantations crack
open our skull caps
into which we’d drop jewels
as cherries to dish, wait
for the western orb to reach the zenith
blaze its beam down and scoop us both moonward?

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