Chiaroscuro

Feeling of late even more
deracinated than usual

and finding a quartz, tinkly rosary in her father’s old cigar box

she began to talk
privately in public places

parks, station platforms, open spaces, conscious with every stone of how

she let herself be picked
up and put down often

and wishing for firmer categories

aware of being
neither the little angel

clinging to the off-white ankle of Christ

nor the shadowy Magdalene
slipping away

and not unhappy about this
...