by Edward Michael Supranowicz
Can This Ink Even Touch You
At night in India the bamboo groves would whistle.
The sound of wind running through the hollow veins of the reed.
My first bamboo pen was made for me there
by a young musician who in the same sitting
carved himself a flute. Something in the bamboo wants to speak.
O tarry stuff of sumi ink: soot, animal bones,
and mystery. Forms a sticky, blood-like glue
if left for days in an open jar.
I have found that when the bamboo pen is made
in just the right way, ink flows from it in an abundant surge
running wildly ahead of my hand, and then settling
all at once
like a black cat upon the page.
The paper is old
and I do not know its history.
I found the pages as you see them,
pithy and strong,
each the color of an unevenly baked biscuit.
These are my last sheets.
Francesca Preston is a writer and visual artist based in Petaluma, California. She lives part-time in the ghost town of her Ligurian ancestors, and can’t think of herself without old rusty objects. Her poetic work has appeared in Phoebe, Crab Creek Review, Stonecoast Review, Ekphrastic Review, One Sentence Poems, and the RHINO art2art challenge. Her first chapbook, If There Are Horns, is forthcoming in 2022. francescapreston.com.
Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is a Jar, The Phoenix, and other journals. Edward is also a published poet.