“waxen winter plants, an oil portrait of a stillborn son,/sensory deprivation tank”
I pictured them in a Chinese restaurant
by the window. Outside: dark water of the
office pond marred by one beautiful swan.
I have received a vision, I confess to her, hand in glove.
We used to believe in the chorus, in the roosting hen.
I believed it when she told me
1 in every 10. But for one, I do what I want.
Some words will never be carried from our
small waters to the sea. I take his inventory:
waxen winter plants, an oil portrait of a stillborn son,
sensory deprivation tank. The meaningless oak boughs
reflect in her glass like some luxury tower. All the empty
rooms at night. The swan dissolves in their sight.
I don’t speak, as I knew I wouldn’t, when I imagined
its integral sign neck emerging from the dark waters of
his sensory deprivation tank. Totality,
rushing into all the rest.
Anna Christina Piccione is a writer from Concord, Massachusetts. She currently studies English Literature & Theology at Oxford.
