Opaline

Your memory turned nacred
in the pearl-blue evening,
pale, bruised with silver tides,
brightest within veinlike cracks.

I can’t see you clearly now
through milk-light
and rose-white fire.

You have an opaline habit
of disappearing,
without leaving,
only fading
shimmer by silver shimmer.

Some nights you return
in pearl-sick dreams
but only as one colour,
like a sieve keeps washing
the memory thinner.

Other nights I can almost hold you
in the mirror’s periphery,
then evening clouds drift,
and you recede
into the soft mineral distance.

I remember you best
in fragments -
a pearl-blue moon
or a rose-white light,
your voice trembling softly
into nothing.

Reviews

[DavidGeo]

That's a wonderful use of the word nacred. Even when I try I've never been able to integrate it.

Opaline is a good name for this.

nacred narcotics... opaline opiates