This is a poem I wrote in order to illustrate what a story and poem collaboration might look like, for the Northwrite 2013 collaboration competition (closing 15 November 2013).  The poem was written in response to a piece of flash fiction by Katharine Derrick, called Inside Out, that was first published in Flash Frontier.

Katharine’s story and more on the process and the competition can be found here: NorthWrite 2013 Example of a story and poem collaboration.

The Model by Janis Freegard

waiting for his arrival
I shake out my hair, undress
crows call
I am nowhere

I watch him
through the open window
striding to my door
easel-laden, eager

you come to me, I’d said
I don’t know
what he thinks he saw
he stretches his canvas

sets his paints
on my bedside table
I have nothing to say
he doesn’t see me

the image he renders
is chimeric
I am above all this
gone with the crows

rising skywards
out towards open sea
hoping I can save someone
from drowning