Cherie Barford
The Sabattier Effect
I’m oversaturated
exposed to light
to the point of transmutation
another year
another cyclone
my body’s lost definition
seeps into the tropical surrounds
of an island
shaped like a Dodo
I haven’t written for days
all the paper in the village
sweats with humidity
resists ink and lead
from hibiscus-coloured pens
sheaves stick together
like perspiring skin
folding onto itself
with clammy persistence
there are no mountains
to entice or capture clouds
straying over this coral atoll
it swelters and steams
collects cyclones in water tables
beneath its crust
I want to read about love
reconstruct glory and exaltation
but don’t be fooled
reciting love poems
restoring cathedrals
it’s all the same
the fabric of construction
a foil for the soul
like any sarcoma
it reveals itself
eventually
just as sagas built
on inspiration
veneration
fidelities of sorts
are susceptible to erosion
emotional jinxes
the Sabattier effect
exposure to light
obscuring the bones of it all
has triggered metamorphosis
rendered me androgynous
my silhouette
now a crumpled egg beater
on a sodden mattress
recalls your touch
fragrant as frangipani
forever gone
your form
so lush and fleshy
I got lost in you
once you stroked my slight curves
whispered in my ear
‘who’d know
you’ve given birth to men’
wrote
I love you
in Cyrillic script
on a shred of paper
I keep for the sliver of passion
left in me
Cherie Barford was born in 1960 in New Zealand to a German-Samoan mother and a palagi father. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Trout and Whetu Moana. Of ‘The Sabbatier Effect’, she writes: “I was living on the island of Lifou in the Loyalty Islands when I chanced upon a book of Man Ray photographs. Using a piece of sponge-foam as a mattress, I let the chickens run over me and thought about darkroom techniques such as polarization and the Sabattier effect. I had a sense I was over-exposed to the sun and was mutating. Combine this with a lovers’ tiff and voilà—The Sabbatier Effect.”