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  • Bathers*
  • Barbara Chase-Riboud (bio)

BathersIn a new and unpolluted seaFresh from visionYou and IYou and INewNewEmergingClinking like metalShiny on the sandAs wave-washed copper penniesAnchored by beach lizardsWeighted in shrouds ofSmooth rose pebblesAttached toSlow-rolling flying kitesSeparated by aGritty breezeThat windsdownThe spaceBetween usAs irrefutable asThe Great Chinese Wall. . .Evaporating sea tearsOn youSea tears that dryLeaving small whiteCircles of brineNot like my tearsThat remainForeverUndried [End Page 855] As I walk back into thatNew and unpolluted seaFresh from visionYou and IYou and IOldOldConvergingIn the ooze ofRadiolarian skeletonsOn the bottomOf the Arabian Sea. [End Page 856]

Barbara Chase-Riboud

Barbara Chase-Riboud, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a sculptor, poet, and fiction writer who studied visual art at Temple University, Yale University, and the American Academy in Rome, before she moved to Paris, France. Her writing career began in 1974 with the publication of From Memphis & Peking: Poems. She is also author of six other books, including Hottentot Venus: A Novel, Echo of Lions, and Sally Hemings: A Novel, winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in 1979. Chase-Riboud began her career as a visual artist as early as the 1960s, when she exhibited her work at the New York Architectural League Show, the Festival of Negro Art in Dakar in Senegal, and the L'Oeil Ecoute Festival in Avignon, France. Since that time, her work has been mounted in museums throughout the United States and Europe.

Footnotes

* "Bathers" was originally published in From Memphis & Peking (New York: Random House, 1974). © Barbara Chase-Riboud 2009. All rights reserved.

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