Mixed Media. Abalone shell, stitched portrait in silk,

Cornish seaweed.

Carolyn Savidge 2025.

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Upon my head

 

Three budding roses stab my head

with brutal piercings and crossed threads.

Ribbed skin is spelled and spent in silk, upon my head stitches unpicked, and anchored seaweed laid across.

 

In gaunt bones the truth to see

lips muzzled, sewed pink

hibiscus thorn in passage ‘cross my face

years scorned, beauty scythed and done.

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Upon my head a third eye stitched, not mine

but taken from the face of mourning sun.

Silk stitched rose buds will not bloom but damage done, and I’m submerged in sheaths.

 

Inside a shell of Paua Abalone sea creature passed, its grave unclear, my portrait ‘scribed as cargo.  I am not what seems.

 

I dance in dress of marigolds

upon my face a ghost embroidered tongue

and then I can’t remember, is this me?

 I ended cast on rocky shore.

Blues, greens refracted, purple hues forever clasped in Māori’s glinting eye.