5 December 2008 | Vol. 8, No. 4

The Symmetry of Water

To lose balance in water—

how would you define this?


         I wore my pretty blue choir

skirt as I was told to


         look past the accident

to find my double glass


         shape of flute within the frond

light gladiolas flap glass


         so to be polite, to capture

shyness back (most mornings it works


         to trick the image with speed

or lipstick). One future uniform


         sheen. And the vastness of such

dream: how does one lose balance in water?


         With devastation a coin

         drops (as one takes the first step)—


         So misplace the interest

in your mouth—how could you


define things? Rest it top the head

         as one accepts their blunder


         all round equivalence flies beneath

         mascara as to tune choir


         blue as I would stand up straight

now and rock and rocking go


back and forth (let it down

now, surrender to sink).

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About the author:

Lauren Goodwin Slaughter is Assistant Professor of English at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Fiction Editor for the online journal, DIAGRAM. Her poems have recently appeared in Salt Hill, Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Juked, 5_trope, and also on Verse Daily.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Lauren Goodwin Slaughter at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 8, No. 4, where "The Symmetry of Water" ran on December 5, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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