dorothy terry | silk trade

Poetry Dispatch No.131 | November 7, 2006

Dorothy Terry is a prolific and talented poet who should have a long list of published poems and books to her name by now, yet remains virtually unknown — only a scattering of poems in print here and there. She demands much of the reader but offers a sense of style, a crafted language, a shining intellect that holds you captive in her world, wondering what else you’ll discover in another read, wanting more of the same magic. Norbert Blei

SILK TRADE by Dorothy Terry

Soft as moth wings
Fragile as brushed silver
The seamless night unfolds
Collects purpling clouds
On far horizon
Abandons the faithless sun

Your Dhow’s pregnant sail
Slices through milk-stained seas
Bears azure treasures
Past ghost-whistling palms
Coved massings of purple plumes
Cliffs calked with flaking chalk
Traces your journey
From Dar es Salaam
To Durban

Where, at setting
Of another ravaged sun
In fevered field
You slide from my shoulders
Silently, in gentle pool
To wind the pocked mother
And her skeletal child
In luxe and light.