Picturing Krishna
Ag,
ague,
sparks flow through silver
wires in a glass of salt
water
bringing
my colloidal solution to
feeling blue.
Fingernails loom
as pale half-moons –
lunulae – a sign –
in my silvered mirror
I peer at lips and eyes.
Over time exposure to
the sun blues my hands and
face. My skin so smooth.
I am cyan,
ensilvered here
floating in solution
by safe light waiting
for my latent image to develop.
Silvertongued,
living in my darkroom
now, I breathe so lightly
taking on the
divine colour
of water filled
clouds.
Written for an on-line course taught by Jen Hadfield at Poetry School and published in a BCU School of English newsletter. While drinking colloidal silver, a practice favoured in the southern United States, may be good for the skin it can irreversably turn the skin blue. When I was a keen analogue photographer, I was amazed how people would dip their bare hands into the chemistry…