Sri Prabha's Mixed Media Sonnet

The Fountainhead Studios, May 2013



Deep in Little Haiti—skirting historic homes, Section 8
housing and Big Sam’s Minimart, you have hung a universe
of jeweled galaxies on whitewashed walls. Jupiter balanced
on Seattle’s Space Needle and in the Taj Mahal’s
reflecting pool, Mercury embedded below cobalt resin.
Resin, ancient sealant. Cohesion, a natural law.
Modern alchemist, malleable pigments, you conjure
paint from vats of elemental properties. Shah Jihan’s
unfinished tomb winks back from in-laid mica flecks,
from snowflake paint, from twig—from Venus—
from the shimmering rings of Saturn
from the embellished edge of your grandmother’s sari

gold threads woven
from the physics of a new century.

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Susannah W. Simpson has work has been published in The North American Review, Potomac, The Wisconsin Review, South Carolina Review, POET, Nimrod International, Poet Lore, Salamander, Sequestrum, SWWIM Every Day, and Xavier Review, among others. Her book, Geography of Love & Exile, was published by Cervena Barva Press in 2016. She is a hospice nurse and the Founder & Co-Director of the Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches Reading Series.