Folding Paper
by A. A. Parr
for Christina Peressini

you spent a lot of February folding paper
your fingers running the creases
manipulating the folds
until from this pile of pulp
your shape emerged

paisley paper bird wings,
rosettes and whorls,
a folded enigma wrapped 
in a curved mystery 
you hinted

soft green fibres
form in the shape of
the first time
you became
a person other than
my idea of you

our words hung 
in the silence across
flat provinces,
politely optimistic,
to where you tore the edges
making islands
in the white expanse
of Winter yet clinging
to this year

paper is so many hidden qualities,
you said, and I knew it to be true
because that is what 
we do, these days,
our pens teasing out of blank spaces
the words that hold most meaning
to our secrets, to our stories
to who we are

unfold the paper:
there is always something
waiting to be said
when our hands learn how 
to place the words
outstretched in the 
appropriate arrangements 
to make us wonder how the other knew