Justine Berezintsev (she/her) is a poet and author living in TKaronto/Toronto, Ontario. An emerging writer, her work seeks to unveil the deeply personal as an act of self-discovery and emotional curiosity.
“‘Cloud Dance’ replies to Claire Ibarra’s photographic piece of the same name (2023). Birds are messengers in many cultures and folk tales. This poem heeded their call. If ekphrastic means ‘extracting,’ I pulled this poem from Ibarra’s play with reflection and the ways in which nature both fits the mirror image that serves as canvas and disturbs it. It imagines a one-way mirror through which the reader lurks and hunts and hungers for the being (spirit? goddess? the one?) that hides in plain sight.“
Kaleidoscope was the intention. If not,
it was a Freudian slip, or pareidolia in lieu
of divination, but Claire means crystal
in the tongue of my mother and it means
mirror when barometers cooperate and
it means there isn’t anyone actually dancing
among clouds, except you—pursed lips, attention’s center no matter
how desperately you edge the periphery. I see you
there, camouflaged as nothing less than illusion,
crow’s feet justified with feathers a poor misdirection.
Did you really think a sunset’s watercolour whims
could distract me from my quarry? There’s no tricking
a trickster. The question is: can you see me?
