The crease of things

‘Creaste’ or ‘ridge’ or ‘fold in a length of cloth which might produce a crest’: the crease in poetry, the tuck and bend is what I read and write for.

Aren’t we all curious about each pinch and puck that pulls against the smooth; the consequence of weight and then the lifting?  The crease points to the something hidden underneath, the pitch interior below the skin that sees the light.

Line, mark, wrinkle, nick against the surface: we look for the transgressions and antidotes to flatness.  That’s why we track disruptions on the black sands, cracks in the pavements outside our schools and houses, crows-feet, stretch-marks, nasolabial folds.

Cellular realignment is another way to look at it, this crease in poetry, this specificity, this chiselled, permanent tatau.  There are inscriptions in the laugh lines: Thracian women tattooing each other in commemoration, and secreting gem-stones in their hems.

For the hunters it’s the topography that counts: its contours, troughs, and mud-flats.  Because above all, the crease calls for navigation, and like an origami crane, no poem can fly without a line of cockles in its gut —

 

©Vana Manasiadis 2017

 

Vana Manasiadis most recently edited and translated Greek poetry for the bilingual poetry collection Ναυάγια/Καταφύγια:Shipwrecks/Shelters (Seraph Press, 2016).  She lives in Auckland and teaches at AUT.