The Transit of Selina, by Kathy Shorr

Pink Bird on Her Shoulder, by Selina Trieff (USA) before 2015

The Transit of Selina
 
Here’s what Hans Hofmann told Selina
about art: Whatever the secret is
 
it’s my secret. 
You have to find your own.
 
So Selina drew and drew for years
till she was drawing the back
 
of her soul, a hummingbird lit
with gold leaf and fire.
 
No matter what the figures --
court jester, chicken, robed monk, 
 
a goat – they shared the same
arched brows and opaque eyes. 
 
It feels like they’re trying to tell us
about the life underneath this life.
 
We’re always surrounded by death
is what Selina said.  
 
Look at that pink bird perched
on the dancer’s shoulder --
 
as if she has a secret to share.

Kathy Shorr

Kathy Shorr grew up on the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, but she has spent virtually all of her adult life near the tip of Cape Cod.  She is a devotee of all things poetry and poodles. She and her late husband spent many summers in a 100-year old house without running water in Squid Tickle, Newfoundland. She  is the 2024 winner of the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, and recent work has appeared most recently in the Atlanta Review, and Lily Poetry Review.