Tea Gerbeza Paper-Quilled Self-Portrait I dip my paper strip in colours of scoliosis, white my spine, mounted snow-covered heart fields in the midground against rolling lung hills the foreground, a gold crouching sinew what I thought to be a ruin of stretched canvas all whirls of grey, I carry away from the mirror quilled shapes, build: a sunset background in forty-five-degree looped strips of bruised translucent flesh speckled brown moles, a plush pink curved scar road canary yellow and orioles’ orange cover bone, flesh as loud as morning bird song I put down the slotted tool dip my fingers in white silhouette
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