Breathing Object

Delicate,
I sit like a porcelain china doll.
I float around like clouds on a winter's morning.
I awaken my snowflake soul

Airy and refined,
My balletic figure pounces.
I rest in the heat, but the air is bittersweet.

I wear a coat everywhere I go,
It is milky and willowy,
And it glows.

My eyes tell a thousand stories,
They are covered in thin sheets of glass.
Blue like soft skies,
Or deep oceans.

With every touch,
A connection is made.
My eyes gaze at theirs,
As dark as nightshade.

I warm my soul against hers
She falls asleep to my purrs.
I watch the city asleep,
As stars flicker
And the noise becomes neat.

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This poem was highly commended for Poetry Object 2018

Judge's notes:
The true nature of the object in ‘Breathing Object’ isn’t revealed until the final stanza. With great skill, and by way of artful simile, metaphor and suggestion, the poet lays down clues that keep the reader guessing: the object is ‘like a porcelain china doll’, ‘like clouds on a winter’s morning’; its eyes are ‘covered in thin sheets of glass. / Blue like soft skies,
/ Or deep oceans’.
Concise stanzas, and the use of internal and end rhyme, add to the impression of a riddle being told; once the mystery is unveiled, the poem sends the reader back to the beginning, to reread with a new appreciation.

~ Bella Li, Judge, Poetry Object 2018
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