Breath & Shadow
Winter 2023 - Vol. 20, Issue 1
"Statuesque"
written by
Coleen Anderson
You unmasked yourself
naked, luminescent
A viral disease
had plucked all your hairs
revealing skin smooth
radiant as amber
Your eyelashes absent, the faintest honey
down where eyebrows should shyly brush skin
Serene as life captured
the sculptor’s finest chiseling
in you stood a goddess
plum curls (wig or not) tumbling
ecstatic over your shoulder
Your almost boyish-but-not-quite body
the breasts
no ponderous old flesh
The planes of ribs and belly
glided smoothly into the cleft
so innocently childlike
but holding deeper mysteries
of a woman’s blood
I’m sure all loved you—loved
your hairless torso so like a child
woman one
yet the other
inspiring as sculpted alabaster
A certain alien perfection
when I saw you
I too wanted to be completely
beguilingly pared down
sleek as any ancient god
carved from life
in stone
Colleen Anderson lives on BC’s rainy wet coast and much prefers it over snow. Fascinated by symbolism and myths, she often explores these themes.
She has a BFA in writing and is a multiple award nominee for the Aurora, Rhysling, Pushcart, and Dwarf Stars Awards in poetry. Her poetry collections, I Dreamed a World, is forthcoming from LVP Publications. When not writing, exploring or reading, she keeps an eye out for mold monsters and mermaids.