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Likestarlings is a place for talking in poems. We pair poets with poets and they write a sequence of six new works by responding in turn to one another. Our palaver blog goes beyond poetry to discuss collaboration in theory and in practice. Please take a look, and feel free to add comments, opinions and suggestions here. Read poems here
 

Air water glass sky

 

……………………all optical media
……………………according to theory
but who can say this is cloud or river
or the carriage light reflected,
doubly, triply, in the window,
there being such complicated bartering
between them at this time of day?

Who says Snell’s law applies here;
light occupied variously
……………………on a novel across the aisle,
……………………a magazine adjacent, and
……………………in my hands, research about
intimate partner violence and all of these
existing in parallel
but somehow outside, lost in diesel speed.

Light sliding from the day
past notched destinations from
Paddington to Exeter, people
washed up on platforms, the river
draining from them, certainty anchored
in someone else’s science

air water glass sky

With a good mirror
the transmitted or reflected angle
always equals the incident angle;

nothing is transformed.
It is the same below as above
within as without.
There is no magic.  There is
no river in the train
if that’s what you were thinking.