Refractions
A Sonnet
by Christopher Ingham

You come to me at night, a shimmering
Of words flashing on my computer screen.
The sap rises; a budding elm in spring.
I live again; lightness becomes my being.
You are Helen, Cleopatra, Bathsheba
Perfection. And I think I hear you call.
And I, Paris, Antony and the Fra
Lippo Lippi climbing the convent wall.
Yet I know in my heart this fantasy
Is as fragile as the spider sun dew
Web clinging to fences precariously
On autumn mornings, light refracting through.
We are, I fear, reflections of that light
Linked only by the refractive night.