Self Portrait of a Friend

The portrait is brown,
shades of rust and earth,
and the shape of a face
that has not remembered itself.

The woman I know has a voice
clean as a magnolia bloom,
hands with the names of friends
lacquered over the pearl polish.

Upon a charcoal ocean
where dreams are webbed in froth
and roll wave upon wave,
she sets a wreath of lilies

to decorate mermaids' hair
and sweeten the salt-laden water.
She is a spectrum of colour,
radiant in the spray, adrift
between sun and sea.



*a poem inspired by Pris' self portrait.