Paper-Quilled Self-Portrait
By Tea Gerbeza
I dip my paper strip in colours of scoliosis, white
my spine, mounted snow-covered
heart fields in the midground against rolling lung hills
the foreground, a gold crouching
sinew what I thought to be a ruin of stretched canvas
all whirls of grey, I carry away
from the mirror quilled shapes, build: a sunset
background in forty-five-degree
looped strips of bruised translucent flesh speckled brown
moles, a plush pink curved scar road
canary yellow and orioles’ orange cover
bone, flesh as loud as morning bird song
I put down the slotted tool
dip my fingers in
white silhouette
Copyright Credit: Tea Gerbeza, "Paper-Quilled Self-Portrait" from Framed & Familiar: 101 Portraits: An International Anthology of Poetry and Photography edited by Antony Di Nardo and Wency Rosales. Copyright © 2022 by Tea Gerbeza. Reprinted by permission of Tea Gerbeza.