Sally-Ann

Precious vase
as old as you on your death bed
smashed to shards
for a lifetime
it was

On a warm day Sally-Ann's skin didn't seem so much like an edge. Thick air that you swim through, and her insides seemed to slide out of sloppy pores. How do you keep yourself in?

Life of shards
shaken you
could only hold so many at once
not sure how to combine
each day

As Sally-Ann entered the room she saw -- all of them saw the light bend and land -- flecks of light scatter across the floor, the walls, as if it fractured from a crystal but they didn't know that. Each of them saw only one point.

Fragments past
caught in glimpses in between
sometimes too sharp
but you don't let go
on purpose

Now Sally-Ann was walking as slowly as she could bring herself to across a great expanse of grass, where the old airport used to be in the middle of Berlin. She watched her knees appear and fall, her feet make heel and toe on ground, and how the blades disappeared under them. She looked at the sky -- so much sky -- more than her usual routes through the city would permit. So big that at times, her feet and eyes were miles apart, and in the space between she saw a series of people and hopes stacked one on top of the other, all of them her. Saw herself half her size, clutching at the bottoms of skirts for safety, not quite able to look up at the faces. Saw the faces too late, and confusion, and empty hands. As she watched she was trying not to feel disappointed.

Flashes first
take on new light as you find them
each time you look back
not quite the same
now and then

When Sally-Ann talked she watched the other person intensely. When the other person talked she heard shapes, and shifted herself to match without even moving the air. The new people seemed like new maps of home, all sitting around a dark wooden table in the corner of the bar, playing the music she'd listened to fifteen years ago. As she watched Sally-Ann said to herself that it was a relief to finally be able to express more of her real self.

Torn apart
searching you
wish for one whole image
never seen
and will always change

Sometimes you can pull yourself inside your own skin. Sally-Ann took a small step back but didn't want anyone else to notice -- which they did -- and so she did it only with her attention. Now she was stood fifty centimeters behind her own head and slightly to the left. Sally-Ann had a habit of looking at the neatly structured patterns of corners and edges. She had discovered that this made the air seem more solid, a layer separating her from the people. She wasn't sure if they were really her people. She didn't know what to say.

Precious vase
stands in final resting place
patterns and shape revealed in all their glory
at the moment you cease
to comprehend

Once, Sally-Ann had been a giant whale. The water had pushed her up even when she wasn't looking, and it only took a soft impulse to arc and glide and drift, somehow fast and incredibly slow at the same time. The whale wasn't particularly concerned about what other creatures would do. It operated at a different scale, a different speed.