The Arts & Culture Journal

The artist is prepared for the feat,
In costume ready for the performance.
She stands with her face to the still, blank sheet,
With her arms arced high in drilled conformance.
Practiced, she’s poised to plunge into the deep,
Her eyes point forward, glazed in concentration.
Her tips dip into the cool liquid with one swift leap;
The challenge starts as she leaves her station.
The glass surface shatters and emulsifies,
Curdling into bubbles around her limbs,
Which manoeuvre with the grace of damselflies,
Yet with the ease and power of shark fins.
Over the surface her skilled hands skate,
Weaving water into filigree folds,
Stirring prismatic colours that emanate
Through the gaps in Light’s hand as he tightly holds
A rainbow of colours in his white clasp.
The water is jostled and Light is surged,
And crystal liquid pries open his grasp,
Whilst Shadow distorts the shapes submerged.
The Water stirs and wakes, swirls like snakes,
Like ribbons of spun silk, brushing over her skin,
Over the curve of her back. The Water quakes
As she kicks his resistance, propelled to win.
With skilled technique she sweeps her arm,
Twisting her frame into a broken lattice.
Pearls of water disperse off her palm,
Like beads cascading from a broken necklace,
To ricochet off her sleek porcelain skin.
Her titanium fingers seem ghostly green
As they stroke the water, eerily thin,
Beneath the glassy sheen of chlorine.
They stretch and etch the water with ease,
Strong like cutting diamond, soft as a knife through paint,
Handling her medium without cease,