Layered Light

Layered Light
by S. Brackett Robertson

You think I’m human, don’t you --
that this mist has formed skin, formed bone.
Have you never learned the shape of things isn’t what matters?

I will draw you in, my dear,
with my light, with my mist

You do not understand what it is to be
shifted, changed
by every minute of every day
each observation

You do not understand how it is to be multiformed
winking in and out with each new angle of light

I am reflected there, before your eyes
I can only control it sometimes,
move those particles
lead you astray

It is me in the marsh,
flickering.

I inhabit those stones, too,
the ones you tilt at the jewelers
Then you seek my multicolored light

I can live in those sparks, leaping from water
bright with the setting sun

Do not mistake me for human
though you found me beside your highway
washed up, driftwood of a misty sea.

even if these fragments have taken that form
traced from your statues, from skin
Even if they mimic hands, hips, heart
I am not yours.
I am not a girl.

I am so much more than solid.

* * *
S. Brackett Robertson is a recently graduated student of anthropology and museum studies. Her poetry has previously appeared in Mythic Delirium, Scheherazade's Bequest, and Goblin Fruit. No matter where she finds herself, she tends to be on the prowl for archaic objects and places. She enjoys reading, particularly stories, and going on walks through the woods or past strange architecture.