print previewback SARAH MACLAY
Soft Action
It would be like lips—
pale, orchid, fading
into a white sky—
a bird, the crease,
the silhouette—
gradually disappearing
as a curve of gray,
a pencil mark—
mistake.
Or like a poppy—imagined
water
color against an equal
wash of brown
—say, dirt—soft
edges, hushed
cloud from the window
of a plane—lush,
bituminous and red.
Opal—contracting
like a jellyfish
or veil—a skull—
a khaki batwing
folding
into night. An orb,
a bowl for snow, for gathering
blue—a moment
like a cape.
Or a fading field—a plum,
your scapula—
irrigated
from the center, in a circle,
full of winter
wheat. Moving
into ocher
like a buried wing.
A blade. 
The Glass Sonata
Soft Action