​Betrayal: the Language of Descent, by Ulrike Narwani

Three Studies of the Male Back, by Francis Bacon (England, b. Ireland) 1970

​Betrayal: the Language of Descent       

Francis. There’s no ascension 
in this triptych. Only
your lover

seated on a chair, 
seen from behind,
his naked back bent 

before a painting.
In the left and right panels
he faces a portrait of himself,  

a mirror of his head
enlarged and blotched,                                    
the bruises black. 

Stigmata of your betrayal, Francis?
Rejection a language of descent.                    
Anger and despair grown dense

until tremor, 
silent crack, avalanche, 
collapse.       
                                
Your lover’s suicide, 
perhaps,
revenge.

Hand’s anguished paint, a cry. 
The shoulder, once embraced.
Hunched muscle. Flesh. Pink slippage. 

Love’s last dark sluffing--
sorrow.
The central mirror, blank.

Ulrike Narwani

Ulrike Narwani, of Baltic-German heritage, grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After living in the U.S., England, India, and Thailand for many years, she moved to Sidney, BC in 2003.  She and her husband, both passionate about flying, have co-written a memoir Above the Beaten Path about their adventures flying a single-engine Cessna 182—at times with one or more of their three children—throughout Canada, the States, and later into remote corners of the world. Collecting Silence (Ronsdale Press, 2017) is her debut volume of poetry. Ulrike Narwani is a lyric and haiku poet. Work appears in journals such Canadian Literature and The New Quarterly, and anthologies, most recently in Hologram: Homage to P.K. Page. Haiku have won the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku contest.