“Wednesday” And Other Poems by A. Estlin

Aleda Estlin writes poetry and creative non-fiction. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature and an MA in Cultural Studies. Her interests range from literature and visual culture to psychology and spirituality. She’s inspired by birds, water, and secluded places. She strongly believes in the curative power of poetry.

Artwork by Sophie Capshaw-Mack

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Wednesday

roofs disappear under this rain falling like thin iron fences.
Through the shutters,
the world seems even more divided
into equal segments of reality.
It’s a world where drops don’t touch each other.

This landscape is a layer cake of
houses put together out of slices;
the windows – lines and grids.
The outer walls look shingled with equations &
harsh side gabled roofs are steep
like symbols for square roots.

It is the falling rain that’s dripping in divisions.
It is the world outside that flashes in exclusions.
I see it.

My drab eyes throb with this echo of patterns
while looking out, at rain. Instead,
I like the lump of dazzle, I must say,
the light of day that blinds us with confusion.

I crave of waves disrupted over me, in clots;
their tear – a riot, lawless.

Everything I see in the distance is barely existing

Everything I see in the distance is barely existing,
like the whim of houses
coming and going out of sight,
through the fog.
I wonder where they go when I’m not looking &
how they change their dress to fit another view.

Their chimneys rise up high and pop with childish prayers.

When on their knees,
the boys, the girls,
the zealots in between two dreams
request, with wiggly hands, a sign,
the houses twirl and purr their thoughts out to the sky.

And as I look at them,
far, in the distance,
I see a crow reside on top
of the left side of one.
He’s holding something blue.
He drops it to the ground and flies away.
Simple as that.

Will he return again a second prayer? I cry,
to no response.

My sight goes blank.
As far away as fog,
a curtain drops
between me and the world

and nothing else exists out there for me;
but what I cannot see, right here,
where image stops &
meaning turns veneer

I know is nothing but a blink
in God’s left eye.

Hinterland

Guinea flower &
goats-foot &
pig face
mantle this beach
top-down.

Here is where I drag my humanity for drowning,
its feet long like a shadow’s clammy ink.
I want to dispose of it.
I want my face, primeval and gaudy, to surface.
I want the face I had before the world was born.

And up my horns,
and down my whiskers,
and low back
to my furry scruff I ask
the breeze of solace to console
my mask of pale complexion.

It’s here where
lamb’s ear &
viper’s bugloss &
fleabane
disguise as tell-tellers,
witnessing the veils of self
getting lost in the waves.

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