By Anne Whitehouse
So many shades of blue
existing together
in a sea of clear water
rippling over a beach
of fine white sand.
A massive rock rose
out of the sea,
hollowed by the slow
grind of erosion
into three natural rooms.
In one, a sunken pool
emptied and filled
as the tide ebbed and flowed.
It was here, to her capital,
Mersa Matruh, that Cleopatra
retreated with Antony
after the disaster at Actium,
knowing she’d be blamed for the defeat.
All day she bathed in the limpid pool
or sat in the sheltered cool.
She gazed up at the strange shapes
of the water-and-wind-worn rocks,
bright in the blaze of morning,
violet gray in the dimming light.
This Isn't Healing, but It's Something by Zoe Blum
About the Author
Anne Whitehouse is the author of poetry collections: The Surveyor’s Hand, Blessings and Curses, The Refrain, Meteor Shower, Outside from the Inside, and Steady, as well as the art chapbooks, Surrealist Muse (about Leonora Carrington), Escaping Lee Miller, Frida, Being Ruth Asawa, and Adrienne Fidelin Restored. She is the author of a novel, Fall Love. Her poem, “Lady Bird,” won the Nathan Perry DAR 2023 “Honoring American History” poetry contest. She has lectured about Longfellow and Poe at the Wadsworth Longfellow House in Portland, Maine, and Longfellow House Washington Headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About the Artist
Zoe Blum is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is focused on her personal experiences surrounding the themes of trauma, memory, and mental health. Her painted photographs reflect how memory is altered as a body goes through distressing events, emphasizing feelings of confusion, disorientation, and curiosity. Blum currently resides in Cincinnati attending the University of Cincinnati’s DAAP program, on her way to earning a BFA with a certificate in photography. She has had work shown in a number of exhibitions at the Tabula Rasa Gallery in Cincinnati and has collaborated with companies such as IKEA and Cummins, Inc. in her professional experience. Blum continues to explore how paint can alter the context of photography in her work and investigates how paint can be a vessel for remembering.