The Translucent Nature of Irises
            for Valerie Persinko

1.
dark bloom  etched.

see,  i am not afraid
            there were thin lines
            of blood, rising in beads
           
            see, i made this my own
i can make decisions. i can watch them   stick.

it is so important
that you know the story

there is a story

            [the particulars dissipate
             a long garden, stretching against pavement
             the scent of it, rising]

2.
sky broken into bars
filigree of blue 

carved and curved  

can i take a knife and slice each apart?
            i have heard of golden filaments of sunlight
            it was a dead girl
            who wrote those words
                        though not yet.

                        she laughed that afternoon
                        exposing her neck                      

                        i wanted to touch it she said
           
                        later, but of course later, she died.
                        or was killed.

                        it varies on the telling.

3.
is this how i will be remembered?
            sunbleached.

how is she remembered?
            laughing.

4.
there is a paleness to my skin
that looks unfamiliar.
            as if i were disappearing

it was seven years ago
            delicate girl  thin bones
            i wanted to touch it she laughed

            later   of course, later.

i had forgotten about her.  seven years  a lot happens

even so  certain things
can no longer change

            i make sure of this ::  etched
            always the same state of  open
            always the same state of  closed

5.
what would she say
about the faded places here?
            it was the sunlight
            tangled beneath a new jersey forest

            that she curved her hands
            to show me 

golden bars   golden filaments
each finger trailing

i           walk beside lizards
            press my hands into sunwarmed rocks

while she slips   into the dark spaces

how did i forget  the circles she made against the air?

      
6.
bright bloom

i am used to cold  being the downfall of petals
            here, it is the heat that kills

a few, though, survive
            shake their heads
            and bend gently

                        see, i have lasted
                        i can continue

            even beneath this
            everpresent sun

there are others
equally strange in this place

others   [imagine innumerable fields
              imagine, then :: two  and the way
              each compliments. corresponds.
                                        makes possible.]  

Alexis Vergalla is currently a graduate student of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside.  Her work has appeared in Eclectica and Plankton, and she is the editor of Crate.