Anamorphis, by Dorie LaRue

Anamorphis: On a Secret Portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie, West Highland Museum, Scotland
                                                                                   
He never ran on issues,
claiming a chromosome shuffle,
but slewed in the colors' auguries,
uncaught by silver curve,
he tantalizes
those determined
to be amazed
without smoke or mirrors.
For a while nothing
bequiles me
but glitter and black,
flakes the color of cat
cries, (or wine wild eyes?)--
maybe only cold stars, 
a stare's delusion 
of blueing magnitude.
But palpable is the noise of thronged life,
and the crashing of hot cymbal
so thus, these colors coalesce:
red nerves, a shriek unglued,
three shades of magenta
like a sky lowering
over too much history.
Then emerging parts, bits, of you,
your tiny future: no face yet but
privative months set
forth to snatch perception:
lost March, lost April,
May, and the way cities
rose, brimming burns
bent, parted at your touch.
Splendid the muffled inklings,
the face faking form,
in the church of imagination
until finally the great pretender
himself! colours within colours,
splendid, him,  in the hours
when earth's uneven work
hung in balance like a laurel,
the middle of all other
omnipotent idea.

Dorie LaRue
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Dorie LaRue teaches at LSU in Shrevport, LA. Her book of poems, Mad Rains, was published in 2014. Her novel, Resurrecting Virgil, won the Omaha Prize for Fiction. Both are available on Amazon.