JODY BALTESSEN

Colour Theory 


Cobalt blue.

I choose my nail colour for the ancient tiles of Porto – los azulejos. 

They are everywhere here. Interior. Exterior. 
Tin-glazed tiles in Moorish geometrics
composing a lyric for this city built of stone. 

I tread on lapa grey granite. Indigenous. 
On metamorphic gneiss. Enter into a mineral state. 
My body metallic absorbs the elements. 

The silvery slate of cobalt sintering underfoot.

~

Black.

da Vinci called it broken.

Denied it had the power to hold anything. 

I used to think you had vanished
into that dark fold. All your light gone.

But now, eyes closed, I see a grainy light. 
On cortex and wave, a strand incoming. 

Not so much you as we. Evident. Invisible.

Ever more present in the sheltering dark.