H.M. Christie
Chiaroscuro
In the wet darkness
of the red darkroom,
I watch an image of you
materialize.
Tintoretto unveiled his completed panel
installed
in the ceiling in San Rocco,
when he’d only been asked
to submit a sketch.
Titian suggested it was a
scheme; the greed of
“un semplice villano.”
Submerged in the developer bath,
you turn towards me
again.
They are letting the cruise ships,
bloated,
back into the lagoon.
Even knowing that their influence destroys
our city.
I prefer to rub
the chemicals
into the paper,
manipulating your contrast
with my fingers.
You prefer to
move on.
The Scoula flooded
the other day.
(The Tintorettos look into
their mirrored images.)
Fossilized shells in the
pietra d'Istria floors, submerged
again in sea water.
A reunion, taking some
145 million years.
Whereas, with
every image of you,
motionless,
(in the borders of the negative
looking back into my camera)
you manage to move further away.
Torcello
In my mind I take the boat back to
Torcello. Silence
but for the dip of oars
in the brackish water.
They created
with maps and with bibles,
with stones and the magic of buoyancy;
naming the nameless.
So much of life now
is only
the unpacking
of life then.
Water gathering in a bucket
smelling of iron.
The forgotten recording of the sound
of footsteps.
Rust from the chain left in the tide
red like the inside of
a kissing mouth.
Diamond
I was a girl
standing on the kitchen chair,
washing dishes & suddenly
the drain – Screaming! – the dark hole
of the disposal, grinding like breaking bones
(its work interrupted.)
My Father
off the couch then
put his square-tipped fingers
into that frightening place
and pulled out for me
A dime!
Glittering, clean, with facets newly made from
the blade-cuts of the machine’s teeth
(the poor man’s diamond.)
I took it from his palm
More precious than all other coins
and kept it as long as any child
can keep things.
I am a woman
in the back of a car on the way to the airport,
working & slowly, a man I know
slides his hand – tenderly – along my shoulders
his voice, a blade, saying, “I want to protect you.”
The dark hole of me contracts, crushing the softer things I hide there
(a machine interrupted.)
His square-tipped fingers dip
into that frightening place
and rattle the stone in my heart.
His tenderness glittering,
carelessly,
he’ll coax that stone out
(between the blades that have cut up other,
soft tissues reaching inward)
and keep it
More precious than all other stones
(the strong woman’s diamond.)
as long as any man
can keep things.
H.M. Christie is an American-born poet, novelist, and lawyer working for climate justice in the developing world. Christie writes in French and English and her work has appeared in several publications including The Copper Nickle and the University of Pittsburgh Law Review. Though a majority of her time is spent in business-related travel, she is based in Quintana Roo, Mexico.