Bay by Ruth Bavetta

Bay, by Claire Browne, 2001. American artist.

Bay
   
She draws tiny circles one by one with her left hand.
They foam across the canvas like bubbles on the beach
roil and effervesce across the sand.

Colored pencil circles done freehand
on gesso sanded clean and white as bleach,
drawn one by one with her left hand.

A mitosis of new cells, bacteria, a strand
of stars, thousands come together, leach
their efflorescence from the sand.
 
A spume of blues and greens fanned
as distant from the past as she can reach
drawing round and round with her left hand.

Creeping over bounds and edges, contraband
reflections crawl across the canvas, pleached
with roils and effervescence on the sand.

She transcends a childhood she did not understand,
closes memories away without their speech,
as tiny circles fall one by one from her left hand
and they roil and effloresce across the sand.

Ruth Bavetta

Previously published in Fugitive Pigments, FutureCycle Press.

My poems have been published in Rhino, Rattle, Nimrod, Tar River Poetry, North American Review, Spillway, Hanging Loose, Poetry East, and Poetry New Zealand, among many others, and are included in four anthologies. I have published two books, Embers on the Stairs (FutureCycle Press),and Fugitive Pigments (Moon Tide Press.) Two more books, No Longer at this Address (Tebot Bach) and Flour, Water, Salt  (FutureCycle Press) are forthcoming.