Study of a Woman Alone in her Marital Bed

by Sharon Black

I’m a cross, an angel with a full skirt
and with flapping outstretched wings,

a skipjack on a porcelain plate,        
a length of relaxed timber; an origami

of knees and elbows, shoulders, neck,
legs together, now akimbo….

I’m a boat at sea with no other boats for miles,
no rain predicted, the water glassy,

my reflection wavering, hull to hull –
and I have never felt so boat:

not ship or raft or catamaran or ocean liner,
not barge or skiff or yacht –

just a narrow wooden boat from which a line is dangling,  
a figure moving on the deck,

white sail arching like a swan’s neck;
on the table a nautical map,

each arrow breaking through
the rings of a compass rose.