Readings in Contemporary Poetry

Norma Cole


ESTAR for Hélio Oiticica


They wore strips of fire along their limbs for that death dance, fabric striped like roof 
tiles, a cabin in Eden, small stars in the shape of proverbs

Checks and balances her thoughts myself, organdy or tulle crumpled and bunched around
a rolled core of burlap upon a reflective cylindrical horizontal base

The shorn wrapped woman opens the glass bólide. Rose pigment. Floral pattern on the
one hand, cape on the other. Overlay

He wanted to emphasize the other box too. In order to do this, he needed Milton. His
friend had died in the sea

He needed to celebrate the bandit, Lycidas. The top of the box held between two hands,
diagonal slash a lighter gray across the lid

The open box above, small abstractions piled inside. Another lighter smaller object to the
right and on the following page

Space relief underneath, the slanted opaque illusionary planes on metal stands. On glass.
Two round objects seen from the side, urn-like, from above, sphincter-like, pebbled

At least four kinds of cloth from white to dark, a striped one with a sheen to it.Held,
smiling above the gravel and the shadowed grass of Eden

© 2000 Norma Cole

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